


Against all Odds

by PthaloGreen



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-10-17
Updated: 2013-08-26
Packaged: 2017-11-16 12:29:16
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 8
Words: 32,315
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/539428
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PthaloGreen/pseuds/PthaloGreen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>Inside is a sheet of crisp, white paper with a simple message scrawled in elaborate hand and purple ink:</i>
</p><p>
  <i>  <b>You’re welcome.</b><br/><b>R.L. x</b></i>
</p><p>
  <i>Oh HELL no.</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. A Prologue of sorts.

**Author's Note:**

> Because would they ever really be adults? Seriously?  
> (no)  
> In which I'm too sick to go to school and none of my other fic update plans look appetising enough to continue.  
> In which I love silly dersecest forever.

The first time you receive it, you discard it. You’re not a cabaret band: you don’t take requests. You’re a director, a shitty-divine one at that and the only scripts you’ll be butchering any time soon are your own. That’s _final._ It’s tossed into the paper-recycling without a second thought.

The second time you receive it you’re moderately unnerved by the dedication to get it past your security and onto your desk, but still not interested enough to read the note you see poking out from under the cover. Asking around, it seemed no one else in the office was quite sure how it got there either. It wasn’t the first time you’d had a security breach, but they usually tried to _steal_ things, not leave gifts. You came close to opening it, but not close enough. Something else had happened, some distraction or a visitor or something generally more important than examining what appeared to be little more than a shitty manuscript about wizards of all things. After a complaint was issued to your security people, you pretty much forgot about the whole thing.

That was until the third time.

The ‘third time’ began as any other morning would. You woke in a state of post-sleep haze, still in your glasses from the night before, and shuffled to the shower where you would spend the next hour and a half showering yourself until every orifice on your body shone like the sun and your hair reeked of synthetically-engineered coconut fragrance (the bad, sickeningly sweet and nausea-inducing kind). From there you’d dragged your half-naked towel-clad body around your apartment for the next three hours, breaking what you’d call your ‘morning stroll’ with trips to the refrigerator to inspect your weaponry collection or amassing clothes from your various floordrobes with which to clothe yourself when you finally decided it was probably time to get shit done.

By the time shit actually ‘got done’ and you’d parked up at your offices (taking up three bays in the process because who can be bothered with that shit), it was still only 8:30.

(Experts have tried and failed to assess Dave Strider’s mentality and figure out exactly how he can survive on little more than three hours sleep a night. More people still have plagued him with questions on the subject of exactly what he gains from waking up so early it is still considered the night for everyone else. Only you know truth:

You are a man of action. _You rise with the dawn._

Bane of the late-night delivery service of every takeout in the city, ‘that one guy’ who struts into the corner store at 3am in a suit to buy three weeks worth of pop-tarts just for the thrill. The man, the legend. )

Strutting into the building where your special brand of magic gets artificially processed and reformed, you had offered a nod to the reception-desk people as you tried to drink your Starbucks without sloshing it down your suit. Some days you think you should leave the lid on, other days you remember that you _want_ the people to see that you’re not afraid of being mocked for going large on the whipped cream and chocolate sprinkles: If it is sold at the coffee shop, hot chocolate is a beverage as much to be appreciated and respected as any other form of overpriced caffination.

They don’t say anything. They never do - even if you have mail you get it yourself. You’re only a slave-driver when you’re in a particularly shitty mood and even then you only order people to do ridiculous things like that one time you instructed a team of trainees to build a children’s playground in the second floor bathroom and declaring as they stared at your suited form in bemusement as you swang to your heart’s content that if someone didn’t sit their ass down on that goddamn swing next to you in the next five minutes everyone was getting fired and you were going to toilet paper all of their houses personally.

And yet still they regard you as a genius, the engineer of cinematic brilliance.

(It’s probably just because you’re pretty as fuck, motherfucking prom queen material right here, but you don’t mind.)

The ‘third time’ was probably only as catastrophic for you as it was because you didn’t anticipate it. At all. And in fairness, why should you have? You got a lot of obsessive fans, a lot of people trying to sneak onto the premises – people were crazy and that was okay, that was why you had a 200-man-strong security team at your beck and call. After a few attempts they usually admitted defeat and/or were arrested. There was no reason for you to suspect that there would even _be_ a third time but oh – _OH –_ how there was, and how it was everything you’d never expected in the worst way.

Approaching the door to your main office, you couldn’t help but think the corridor smelled a little… different. Not unpleasant, not by a long shot, but more feminine than usual. At first you assumed the cleaning lady had used a little more perfume than usual that morning, but as you grew ever closer to the door you realised the scent of what you assumed and was later confirmed to be lilacs was coming from inside. Frantically, you jammed your key card in the slot and threw open the door.

This was, in hindsight, a terribly rash decision. You were all at once rendered nearly blind and comatose from the smell and colour and still shudder at the memory.

Everything was purple. _Everything_. And not in a vandalism kind of way, oh no- this wasn’t a crappy spray-paint job, this punk had gone all out, they’d got you good. Your furnishings, including your beloved brown-leather swivelly chair (many a happy hour spent there, just spinning round and round and round and…) and custom MacBook had all been replaced with plush purple paraphernalia of all forms that reeked of spring flowers. You didn’t even know it was possibly to buy knitted laptop-covers, and that was only what had been _replaced_ ; the additions to the room were at least five times more terrifying.  As tall as you and painted – no, upon closer inspection they are in fact _gilded –_ in tacky yellow-gold, it had taken you a moment of staring at them in horror to realise that they were in fact not gargoyles but _wizards._

A decorating travesty. Right there, in _your_ office. The worst part was that the entire room was still totally usable. It would have been a waste of time to get the interior design people in before later that night when you were out of office considering all the stuff you had to do that day. Seething, you’d paced to your desk and gritted your teeth at the three copies of the same manuscript you’d received and disposed of twice prior piled up neatly on the corner of it, taking the sealed envelope that laid atop the highest copy and ripping it open without ceremony.

Inside was a sheet of crisp, white paper with a simple message scrawled in elaborate hand and purple ink:

 

* * *

**_You’re welcome._ **

**_R.L. x_ **

* * *

 

_Oh HELL no._

 

And so it had come to be that without realising it and with several more painful experiences to go before you would even meet the lady in person, you had your first encounter with Rose Lalonde.

You really should have learned not to ignore her when she wanted something right there and then.

Needless to say, you didn’t. 


	2. You've got mail.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really need a hobby or something idek

You wake up tired and everything hurts. The natural second thought is that you should call your doctor – you can’t be getting sick now, the world is hankering for a sequel and who are you to deny them. Then, gradually, you remember the purple room and how it took you three hours of being wheeled around Staples in the trolley by a work-experience guy (“I don’t trust internet shopping for chairs, Maurice. I don’t trust it at all.”), hopping out at regular intervals to test the plush seats of the office chairs with your backside and sighing forlornly at each one. They were not perfect, but they would do. This would be a temporary replacement while your usual supplier began to make a copy of the chair you lost but so desperately longed for. At most it would take three weeks to finish. “I’ll wait forever…” You’d whispered down the line, locking eye-contact with one of the cleaning ladies as you said it to make her feel uncomfortable.

You had to hand it to R.L – the guy was good. No one had seen the furniture move and the timespan it could have happened in was so short that it could only have been done in one trip. For the time being, you could survive working in your _other_ office, but that wasn’t the point – this kid meant business and you’re on edge at the thought of what they might do next.

You’re pretty new to this whole deal, but you’ve already survived two murder attempts. Death would be a blessing compared to the ache in your bones from worry-fatigue and the staggering scent of lilacs still refusing to leave your nose. With a sigh, you roll out of bed and drag yourself to your home laptop, booting it up and rubbing your eyes as the familiar desktop background of your own franchise pops into view. The first call of action is to check your trusted underground news sites for any updates on what your crazy-ass government is doing. You don’t know exactly what’s going down, but you don’t like it and you sure as hell know a rat when you see it scurrying away underfoot with every step. It would be fair to say you’re paranoid – that comes with the position. Hilarious as everyone finds your early mornings and late evenings, the reasons you don’t leave your home in broad daylight are more sinister than you’d like to let on. After all, while a guys an idiot he’s not a threat.

Maybe you’re paranoid, but you’re not stupid either.

Every man for himself when you don’t trust your higher ups. You will never be anyone’s puppet - about that much you are adamant. 

You carry the computer to the bathroom and scroll while you brush your teeth, spraying your bleached-white crop with dry shampoo shortly after (If you wash it too often it won’t look as thick and luscious. Looking thick and luscious is definitely a top priority for your hair.) and combing it to perfection. When you look in the mirror, a thirty-something somebody looks back at you with a piercing red gaze. His body is good, tanned skin bejewelled with tiny freckles in pleasing patches, but you can’t help but think he’s looking a little… _old_ in the face. Maybe it’s the eye bags. Retrieving your trademark glasses from the side, you cover them up and try again.

Much better.

Everything is better with shades. Makes you wonder why you were so worr-

Your computer sounds a small chirp that means you have mail. The small clock in the bottom corner tells you it’s three am. These two things do not make sense together, and your brain is still too far in post-sleep-grog-mode to compute. The two of you, screen and man, stare each other out for a while before you mumble something to yourself about being a goddamn pussy and doubleclick the icon that remains flashing on the screen.

You immediately wish you hadn’t.

Frantically, you scan it for any trace of a virus. It comes back clear. The email reads that it’s from a no-reply address and after sending three angry messages and getting nothing but a Sending Failure notification every time, you are _this_ close to just filling your bathtub with water and submerging yourself face first in it out of sheer frustration.

It wouldn’t be so much of a problem if you didn’t have to sign into your work e-mail manually. Somehow, this kid had managed to send it to your personal. The one you’d used at high-school and only really kept logged-in for sentimental reasons and to re-read all the hate comments on your original website. This kid was _good,_ and that was very very _bad._

You re-read the message for a fifth time, looking for traces of clues or even any malice whatsoever – the strangest thing about the message is the seeming lack of aggression. It’s like an e-mail from your _mother:_

* * *

 

**You are a grown man. If I see you eating take-out one more time this week, I’ll replace the DVD collection you keep at work with cookery books until you become so reverently desperate that you have no choice but to submit to the art of making your own meals out of sheer boredom.**

**Also, that new chair is horrible: I’ll fix it again. You’re welcome.**

**Fondest regards,**

**R.L x**

  
**P.S. If you’re reading this right now (And I know you are.), go back to bed, Strider. One of these days you’re going to burn yourself out.**   


* * *

 

 

Tentatively, you reach a hand to your cheek and let the warmth residing there spread to your fingertips. Suspicions confirmed: you’re blushing. You’re legitimately touched by some psycho-stalker bullshit at 3am, half covered in toothpaste and naked save for your boxers. You should call the police, and you probably will. Later. Not right now.

The computer stays where you placed it, on the windowsill in your bathroom. You glance at it sheepishly, words still on the screen as if they were a face and not just letters and think about going back to bed.

Dang.

If one creepy message was all it took to turn your soul into mush, maybe you’ve been living on your own for too long.

 

*******

 

After a couple of days and finding that the threat of a second disgusting chair was not carried through (With some strange hint of disappointment that you banish from your chest before it can fester there permanently), you pretty much forget about R.L. Whoever he is, he’s had his fun and he seems to be done with you. Your main office is back to normal within the week with the exception of the three books still piled on your desk. They stare at you accusingly as you go about making calls and orchestrating new merchandise lines for a brand you still can’t believe people are stupid enough to buy. By the end of this year the sequel will be complete and preparation for the third movie will be well underway. You’re building an empire and it feels pretty good, but at the same time you feel a pang of guilt for not reading the books. It’s been a long time since you read something that wasn’t your own material and it would probably do you a lot of good to get some fresh ideas about the world, even if it did involve too many wizards for your liking. The guilt doesn’t last long as the work piles up. You slip out of your short-lived routine of making meals, feeling stupid for the sense of accomplishment that comes from making simple stuff like pasta and omelettes and the books are moved to another shelf to free up desk-space.

It’s two weeks until your next encounter.

 

Two weeks in a hectic lifestyle is a long time for a guy to remember an email and a minor office-felony. That’s how you’ll justify forgetting later when it’s thrust under your nose later that a person in your position really needs to be more careful on a greater level than superficial travelling by night. It’s the first cue R.L will give you of many that you need to watch your back a little better.

 

You’re lying in bed at a quarter past one watching soap-operas from shady streaming sites when it happens, the pop-up again. Immediately you close everything you were doing (Embarrassingly bad plotline, you’re a grown man damn it.) and turn off the lights for some unknown reason (What if they saw??? What If they know???). With shaking hands, you move the cursor and double click.

Same no-reply address.

Same awkward timing and boring choice of font (If it were yours, you would have chosen comic sans. Times new roman, what a drag.).

Slightly more aggressive this time, though.

Only slightly:

* * *

 

**God damn it, Strider. If I have to send you one more copy of this book I will make sure it is hand-delivered exclusively from my printer straight to halfway up your anal cavity and if you think I have the slightest intention of being gentle with you or utilising any kind of lubricant then sir you are _mistaken._**

****

**_I will not be Ignored._ **

**R.L**

* * *

 

You are more hurt that R.L neglected to leave you a kiss than at his gruesome proposition. You must really be in the shit now. Heaving a sigh of relief that it wasn’t a direct death threat, you’re about to close the machine down when it chirps for a second time. Curiosity piqued, you can’t help yourself and give that notification a click too.

 It's shorter this time, lacking the usual formatting. You find yourself smirking at the idea that they wrote this one in a hurry. It's kind of... cute:

* * *

 

**Strider, I can see when these have been read.**

**I told you to go to sleep once already, defy me again and I might just ram that book up your ass regardless of your intention to read it.**

**R.L**

 

**X**  

* * *

 

Ah yes, there’s your kiss. You can sleep peacefully now.

You shut down the computer and put it on your bedside table, stifling a stupid smile with your pillow. Tomorrow, you decide, you’ll maybe read a couple of pages. Maybe a couple more the day after – baby steps, but you’ll do it.

 

 

You wake up and boot up to a new message from your stalker, pretty much a repeat of the one you read last night. Nothing new was said. You figure it was just a way for them to figure out if you were asleep or not. It makes your chest tighten more than you’d like.

You’ll tell the police about this soon, honestly. If it gets to be a problem, you’ll let someone know.

Waking up alone you make yourself some toast and eat it in silence, drumming your fingers on the side in a vain attempt to fill the space left by a lack of words. You think about R.L. You think about the Government. You think about shitty b-rated movies and you think about your office-chair.

It strikes you all too suddenly that you would maybe kind of like someone to talk to. Glancing half-heartedly at your notification-void monitor, you wonder if the security breach really bothers you at all. A small voice in your head and that same chest-tightening confirms that you’re probably more bothered by the fact that you don’t have a return-address to send kisses of your own to.

…Wait, what? No, that was far too lame. Far too sappy. Feelings are the last thing you have on your mind, you have shit to do. You spend the next ten minutes laughing unattractively at yourself for the momentary lapse of not-giving-a-fuck. When you look at the clock it tells you you’ll be at work by 10:30 today, the time you’re actually required to be there and it feels… strangely good to have slept more than two hours in a night.

You leaf through four chapters of the book, ‘Complacency of the Learned’, when you break for lunch. You only stop because you get called into a meeting. The novel is strangely compelling, though you’re still not sure why it’s so important to this mysteriously obsessed stalker that you educate yourself to its contents.

 

Strangely enough, you’re not complaining. 

Weird. You’d forgotten how you liked to read. 

 


	3. Strange encounters of the skirtless kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I AM GOING TO SAY THANK YOU FOR ALL THE COMMENTS AND THINGS UP HERE BECAUSE I DON'T WANT TO CLUTTER THE COMMENTS INDIVIDUALLY THAT WOULD BE SILLY BUT THANK YOU ALL SO MUCH YOU'RE VERY KIND I WASN'T EXPECTING SUCH NICE THINGS YOU'RE ALL LOVELY.
> 
> MY HAND IS CRAMPEd  
> CRAMPEd  
> THIS CHAPTER WAS ONLY 2500 WORDS BEFORE I PROOFREAD IT JESUS CHRIST THAT ESCALATED QUICKLY

 

Time moves slowly for you.

You find that you grow to like it. You make time to read and time to eat properly. You find yourself sleeping in a pattern that if not ‘conventional’ is at least _consistent_. The bags under your eyes get little better and you find yourself doing stupid things because you _want_ to do stupid things, not just because you feel out of control and antsy as hell all the goddamn time. CotL is the horse-strength tranquilizer for your erratic mind and with time you find yourself unable to look away, dependant on the solace you find in the pages.

It’s not so much the story as how it’s written: words on a page never spoke to you like this before. You’re used to them speaking at you, but this is somehow different. Somehow, it speaks to you and the sound echoes inside your ribcage softly, bouncing off the walls of your chest and making you feel whole. The syntax of R.L, the way they craft the words on the paper as if carving them directly into your sternum, makes you neither happy nor sad, just moved: touched, calmed by the way the language flows in your mind. You’re not sure when your mind decides it is the voice of a woman, but you certainly don’t mind.

Eloquent and lovely, she’s your lullaby when she’s streaking stark white nothing with pure black magic. It’s witchcraft in its purest form and you find yourself quickly spellbound.

 

However, life moves on around your snowglobed microcosm of literary appreciation as it always will. You’re trying to script and direct at the same time, all whilst pretending you’re not paying as much attention to the governmental situation as you actually are. It’s no surprise that you begin to find your darker thoughts submerged in pieces of script, too far to fish out, and eventually you stop even trying. It keeps you awake some nights wondering what anyone in a power position would do to you if they could figure it out. The rational part of your mind knows they never will.

You never wanted to be a genius. You just wanted to make some shitty movies.

Somewhere along the line and without your conscious consent you ended up combining the two and hitting blend before you even realised what you were doing. The result is the grainiest goddamn smoothie anyone has ever had the misfortune of tasting, but it has a saving grace in that it’s _so_ obscure no one can pick out the flavours underneath – not even _you_ most of the time unless you’re paying devout attention (And you rarely are.). Gradually you get the balance right – you put enough subtext in to clear your mind and enough weird crap on top to make sure no one ever finds it and for a while it keeps you satisfied. You crawl into bed at night, palming your copy of the book and thumbing through to the sections you’ve highlighted as your favourites to sedate yourself into slumber. It takes you longer than it should to read it, but given that some nights you spend simply re-reading whole chapters you hope she won’t mind. Or he won’t mind. They won’t mind. Whatever.

For the present, it works. You don’t know how they know you’re reading it but the messages have stopped and you’re almost missing the scent of cheap perfume despite the amount you paid to get everything you owned dry cleaned and rid of it. Given that you could never reply anyway, you don’t dwell on it too much. You’re not lonely, you tell yourself until the words are looped on repeat in your brain, interlaced between the verses of the book you’ve memorized and the claws of your paranoia.  You’re not lonely. You’re way too busy to be lonely. You’re hot shit and everyone wants a piece of you – you don’t have the right to feel lonely.

Your colleagues notice the change. They tell you you’re looking good and that these latest scenes are your best yet but still you’re lacking that _enthusiasm_ you always got from your work. It’s missing something that you can’t put your finger on though it seems to be right in front of you. You don’t get it until you finally finish the last page of the book, glowing with pride for the novel and its author:

 

You want to share it with someone. You want to sit and talk like an adult about what you’re doing and why, and you know what that means, don’t you?

_You’re growing up._

 

It’s your worst fear, bigger than anything else. Always has been, you’d rather die than get old and yet here you are, suit and all. You don’t want to be an adult; you want to be just Dave forever. The world is fast encroaching on your personal bubble and pasting suggestions and expectations on its exterior while you bat them away from the inside as if you couldn’t give a shit. With the book finished, your mood quickly dulls again. You have little to look forward to after work other than getting to pretend that you don’t care. You organise a theatre exercise for your staff team and make them dress as cacti and do a little dance, but nothing quite fills the hole. At the end of the day, you’re just a grown man in a suit and glasses watching people dressed as desert succulents do the most awkward rendition of the Macarena the world has ever seen. It’s not half as funny as you thought it would be. Perhaps you’re losing your touch. Perhaps you never had it to start with. That’s the thing with delusions; once you start the ball rolling it’s hard to remember where you pushed it from and frankly you lack the energy to go looking for it.

You’re in a rut, so you do what you’ve always done when things start to bother you: You ignore them.

And so it came to be that Dave Strider boycotted his own industry for a whole week.

* * *

 

It only takes half an hour for the phone to start ringing. You tell them you’re working from home; you’re not feeling too great. Within two hours internet gossip sites tell you that you have various forms of cancer, you’re caring for your secret pregnant girlfriend, and you’ve recently adopted a King Charles Cavalier spaniel named Barnaby from a nearby shelter. You phone in to all reporters that literally everything on the websites is true: you’re slowly dying while she’s giving birth to a spaniel. At least five of them buy it. The paparazzi arrive outside your block shortly after and you don’t even have the will to go to the window and flash them the bird.

You turn off the lights, close the blinds, shut down your computer and find the book. Soul-balm is what you need right now, even if it means turning your living space into a cave.

The second time around it seems easier to digest and you feel accomplished in understanding it better than before. You focus more on the story than the wording this time, just needing _something_ to distract yourself, and your head makes sense of it in a new way. You begin to notice things you didn’t pick up on the first time around, and this too gives you a feeling of having achieved something. The thing about the book was that as much as you admired it for its composition, you couldn’t help but feel you were missing something before and it made you feel a little… well, inferior in terms of intellect. Something important that was glaring you right in the face while you were distracted by fancy words and pretty prose. As boredom with storytime begins to surface you focus your attention on searching for it, turning the pages frantically, intermittently skimming and deep-reading to try and figure it out to no avail. At some point you fall asleep with your head slumped on the pages and your glasses digging into the sides of your nose.

When you wake up it’s still only late afternoon and you feel utterly ridiculous for having spent the last however long wasting time on searching for a subtext that probably didn’t exist. Tossing the book to one side, you decide that this paranoia thing is really going too far now, you should see someone about it. It’s just a story about chess and dark forces, nothing more. You’re not sure why you were the target of choice, but R.L is clearly just fucking with you big time and that’s all there is to it: Just a bored kid who wants some kind of attention. To give them credit where due, it was well-deserved attention. You’d probably want some attention if you’d written a huge-ass book too. You decide to give it best, take some painkillers for your headache, and call your doctor tomorrow morning if you were still convinced the world was out to get you. Maybe you _should_ get a dog. 

It’s not until later when you have mentally prepared yourself to face the internet again that the cogs begin to click, albeit painfully slowly.

You pace the floor in silence, alone in the dark with your thoughts for company. They mutter to you, but never quite get loud enough for them to decode what they’re saying. It’s on the tip of your tongue, the back of your throat but it never leaves your mouth and strain your ears as you try you _just can’t make it out_ and that’s what frustrates you most. Why the book and why is it important that you read it? Why the seeming desperation? What could make a person so desperate to be heard that they would pull a stunt like switching all your furniture and yet still benevolent enough to care that you went to sleep on time?

Your news-sites flick about something to do with an election in the background and if not for the thought of what would happen to you if you dared raise your voice to any kind of politician you know you’d be over there right now telling them all to shut their god-damned mouths directly instead of through some shitty movie so that you could _focus_ because this is eating you up. And then it hits you.

Chess and dark forces. Chess pieces , games of strategy and foul-play by people misusing powers.

But that’s not the point. The point is that R.L couldn’t say it to your face, couldn’t come forward and ask you directly if you were savvy to what they were thinking about. Couldn’t e-mail it or phone it for fear of interception, had to go to great lengths to avoid being seen by your cameras because your own work was so well covered it could easily have been a convenience that it shared themes with hers.

Frenzied, you return to the papers and scan them more. By now you’re laughing, cackling to yourself and smacking yourself in the forehead like a madman. How could you have been so blind? You’d been unconsciously slipping your worst case-scenarios into your work since the very beginning, but theirs were definitely there on purpose if you knew what you were looking for.

And you definitely do now you’ve figured it out.

A feeling of comradeship and that same pride from before at the utter _brilliance_ of your contact sweeps over you and it no longer matters that you haven’t slept properly in god knows how long because you need to find this kid and you need to find them before someone else figures out what they’re up to.  

Unfortunately this means you also have to find them without anyone knowing you’re trying to find them because if they (You know, the higher-ups) know you’re trying to find someone who knows (Assuming they know R.L knows things she knows she shouldn’t know) then you know that they will know…

Wow that’s a pretty confusing little scenario so you’re going to stop it right there before the word ‘know’ is used anymore and just move on with the situation. Tl;Dr to yourself – you have to be stealthy.

The click of flashbulbs continues to ripple from outside your window and you’re pretty close to stepping out and punching a motherfucker (Because damn, what does a guy have to do to get some privacy to get his everloving think on?) before a glorious if a little impromptu plan springs you your mind.

God damn, you hate the paparazzi but as she demonstrated, desperate times call for desperate measures. Combing a hand through your hair and pulling on clothes that don’t look like you just slept in them, you adjust your shades and prepare to face the music for a worthy cause. If R.L can face the stench of that perfume, you can sure as hell stand getting your photo taken. After all, you’re fucking _beautiful_.

It’s the longest elevator journey you’ve ever taken but you have shit to do and there is always that one risk with taking the stairs (Don’t act like you don’t know the one. You warned yourself enough times to know the one.). When you’re finally freed from the cavern of shitty wallpaper and awful music (You don’t get why you don’t just ask them to change it – perhaps you’re a masochist. Perhaps you quietly respect that they don’t give two fucks about the fact that nobody wants to hear the same Whitney Houston song on repeat as they travel to the ground floor every morning for work.) known to most as the most efficient way downstairs and to you as transport hell you take a deep breath and step outside.

Innumerable flashbulbs go off at once as soon as your foot is out the door. You put on a poker face and take it like a man as they circle around you, not dissimilar to sharks. You’re used to it by now – it’s irritating but there’s no doubt in anyone’s mind that you look good and that will be enough to at least put the rumours at bay. You’re killing two birds with one stone in this shitty little vendetta, who’d have thunk it. Right now, though, all you care about is the microphones and you’ll have to wait until the photographers have moved to have any chance of getting at one. It takes a while, but you don’t retaliate as they wedge DSLRs under your nostrils and someone takes a picture of your crotch when they think you’re looking elsewhere and at last a bedraggled looking news-rep makes her way to the front and thrusts one under your nose, too out of breath to ask any questions.

But that’s okay, because you never intended to answer any in the first place.

You stare at the corresponding camera straight on and take the mic from her hand, uttering a single, monotone word into it.

“Adjudicate.”

It’s a request rather than an order, but you doubt any of these people have ever played chess in their lives, less still got to a position where someone would have to use that term. As their voices reach an uncomfortable volume, you raise your hands and turn to go back inside with a frantic dash that not even you could pull off as cool. Your press people will smooth this over later -  what matters is that you just issued a challenge to a live broadcasting and if R.L is any kind of stalker and half as game as they seem you know it won’t be long before they give in and take your bait.

Though you can’t initiate contact, there’s nothing to stop you speeding up their moves. Like twice the gentleman you never were, you put the situation firmly in their hands. From here you can progress no further: it will be up to them to decide the outcome of this ‘encounter’. Surprisingly (To you at least.), you find when back inside that your hands are shaking. You’re certainly not scared. It gives you a giddy sense of glee to realise after a moment that actually, you’re _excited._  

* * *

 

 

The press don’t leave until the early hours of the morning long after it becomes apparent that you won’t be making a second appearance. You’re a little disappointed at their lack of dedication, but not disappointed enough to see what they’re saying about you online, not least because you don’t know if you could resist the temptation to answer any more of R.L’s emails. You’ve decided that if they want you, they’re going to have to give you some way of communicating with _them_ somehow. Not being the type to think things through terribly well, you’re not sure exactly how they will manage that but you figure they can find a way. Not your problem. They started it.

 The T.V is playing old cartoons and the glare hurts your unshielded eyes but at least the sensory overload is helping to distract you. You’ve honestly no idea how R.L will respond or if they will respond at all. Part of you doesn’t want them to, this is getting exhausting. You were fine on your own until they came along, but at the same time you’re wondering if maybe there is more to life than being ‘fine’. You think maybe you wouldn’t mind being un-fine every once in a while just to see if you liked it. It would mix things up a little, give you a change of air. Maybe you’d even like it.

You shift in your hoody and channel hop for a while, always ending back at the same kids shows you used to love. Eyelids heavy, they’re a comforting background noise and you can almost pretend you’re a child once more.

At 4:30, you fall asleep in your clothes again.

At 4:37, the phone rings.

Not your work phone, your apartment phone.

 

You wake with a start and blink wildly in the coloured light emanating from the screen, still happily playing away in front of you. Dragging yourself groggily off the couch, you feel around in the dark, stubbing your toes several times in the process, for the handset until your hand connects with the plastic clumsily. You hit at least four wrong buttons before you answer and you’re still so tired by the time you do that your first words are a muffled grunt into the receiver.

Fatigue is a short-lived problem, however: the low chuckle from down the line wakes you up faster than a non-consensual cattle-prod to the butthole.

“Good morning, Strider. I see you’re as eloquent as ever.”  A female voice, thick and sultry purrs down the line and nope you’re still too tired to acknowledge the stirring of your groin, too early for this, not happening.

“Who is this?” You finally manage in response, surprising yourself with your ability to sound calmer than you are. She chuckles again before she answers you.

“A man of many words, I see. So far you’re making a great first impression.”

“No, seriously, who the fuck are you?” You demand again as if you didn’t know already, with more authority this time.

“A google search of ‘Complacency of the Learned’ brings up my name on every result for the first three pages. Why are you surprised, anyway? You summoned me first. Actually, why are you awake? I thought I told you to start sleeping like a normal person…”

Your head reels and you hold the phone away from your ear as her wittering continues. This is happening, this is really happening. She sounds every but like she writes and you were _right_ about the writing style because this is _definitely_ the voice of a woman. Eventually you bring the set back to your ear. She’s still going.

“…And I wrote my full name on the afterword. That little note under all the final publishing details, how could you have missed that? Are you clinically blind? Your dress-sense suggests otherwise but I expect you get someone to pick all that out for you anyway….”

She’s put on speakerphone and you put her down as you shuffle to the kitchen in search of coffee. Making a note of the time, you brew a cup and settle back down to your cartoons with it as she rambles on in the background. It’s half an hour before she realises you haven’t said anything.

“Strider? Strider, are you there?”

You take another sip, glaring at the phone as if you’re genuinely offended that she’s talking over Courage the Cowardly Dog.

“Dave???”

“Watch it.” You call. “We’re not on first name basis yet, even if you are sending me early morning bootycalls. You got to wine and dine me first; I’m not that kind of girl, I’m a classy broad. I got standards.”

The sound of your own voice is strange in your ears. You realise it’s been quite a while since you’ve said anything to anyone and it feels pretty good. She falls silent and you laugh lightly to her, sprawling yourself out on the couch. “And frankly, seeing as I’m the playing the gentleman here, even if I could be bothered to read your goddamn small print it would only be right and motherfucking just for me to ask your name before I used it, but not before I ask what kind of a stupid name is ‘Zazzerpan’?”

“Zazzerpan is a very respectable name for a wizard.” She hisses, her tone thick with disgust.

“Sounds like a porn-star’s name.”

“Oh, says ‘Dave Strider’!”

“Hey, what’s wrong with ‘Dave Strider’? Dave is a great name. If I ever had a kid I would definitely call it Dave. Most of my potplants are named Dave.”

“I maintain that Zazzerpan-“

“My _balls_ are called Dave.”

“It’s good to know you spend enough time alone with them to quantify giving them their own names.”

Dang, she’s good. A slow smile has been manifesting itself on your face for the last few minutes and you hastily wipe it off.

“Come on then. To whom do I owe the pleasure? Let’s be civilised here. Let’s be adults.” You deliberately slurp your coffee to make a disgusting sound.

“Nope. Too busy thinking about testicles.”

“C’mon lady.”

“Balls on the brain. Both hemispheres saturated with thoughts about your potentially behemoth junk.”

“You are some messed-up broad.”

“Thank you, I try my best.”

For a moment, you’re both silent. You can’t help but wonder if her eyes are as wide as yours right now, enthused from the fast-exchange of banter and a little out of breath. She matches your timing to a scarily perfect degree, a full-mind workout, and you’ve only been talking for about five minutes.

“It’s Rose.” She says, finally and somewhat more reserved. “Rose Lalonde.”

You remain silent, mouthing it to yourself. You roll it around your tongue. It’s not what you were expecting. Too pretty. Too fragile but nice all the same, even if it doesn’t suit her.

“Well,” You start, gently. “Maybe I sound like a pornstar, but you definitely sound like a grandmother of five.”

Though the playful edge to your words remains, you’re quieter too. The fatigue is getting to you and you wonder if it’s getting to her too. “Hey, what are you even doing up this early anyway? Something smells like hypocrisy and it’s not the slice of Hawaiian I lost down the back of the TV last Tuesday.”

You earn a quiet chuckle, oddly reassuring. It feels… pretty good to talk. Even about nothing, just making someone laugh.

“I knew you’d be up.” She starts. “You think too much and on top of that you’re alone in there, aren’t you?”

Your chest tightens as your head fumbles for something to use in response, but thankfully she continues. “And I am no different.”

Your body sinks into the cushions on the couch as your limbs loosen, tension gone. It’s never occurred to you before how nice it must feel to be understood. You took so much time perfecting a mask so impermeable to anyone’s prying eye that frequently not even _you_ could figure out how you were feeling and in one hit a woman you’d never met had just perfectly summarised your situation. It was only unsettling to the degree that she was beginning to give you a feeling of déjà vu: you aren’t certain you’ve heard that name before but it’s certainly familiar.

“Rose…” You mumble without thinking. She hums in response. “No, nothing. Just saying it. I don’t get to say a lot of names. Usually it’s just ‘You there!’ or ‘Hey! Dude with the beard!’”

She laughs again. You’re so tired you’d do anything to keep her making that noise. “Rose. R…ooos…e. Rooster. No, not the same thing. Rose. It’s a good name. Better than Zazzerpan, not quite as good as Dave but definitely decent.”

“I’m glad I please you.”

“Oh, you do. Definitely.”

You hear her stifle a yawn down the line. She continues your conversation regardless.

 

At some point in the discourse, you move to the phone and pick it up, carrying it with you back to your bedroom and setting it down on the bedside table. You curl in and watch the display count the minutes you’ve shared with her so far and wonder how you were ever satisfied with simply reading her voice. There’s still the nagging doubt in the back of your mind that she’s on to you and this is dangerous, but you’re delirious and dopey and frankly right now if she’s a hazard you don’t think you ever want to be safe again.

“Lalonde.” You finally say, after a conversation about dahlias and erotic pumpkin-carving. “I heard that yawn, girl. Get your ass in bed.”

“Get yours in bed.”

“It already is.”

“Not from what I can see.” Your cheeks flush and you fumble for an answer, but her laughter gets there first. “Wow… I really am tired. I guess I’ll see you soon, Strider.”

The line goes dead without so much as a good night (Or rather a good morning.) and you’re left in the early light to think about what the fuck just happened.

“Dang.” Is your final conclusion, mumbled aloud to yourself as you finally let sleep take you.

 

It’s not the last time she calls you.

For the rest of the week you find yourself carrying the phone around in the back pocket of your jeans, jumping and jabbing at the buttons like a kid at Christmas every time that same ‘Unknown Caller’ display flashes into life, frequently answering before your ringtone (Ghostbusters. Don’t ask why, you don’t really know either. It just feels right.) even starts playing. Routinely you talk for hours about nothing relevant and you relish the feeling of being wanted even though you know she’s probably only trying to work up enough of a friendship with you to gain your trust. You’ll take what you can get if it’s just one minute of her day and you have to admit that you were lonely as fuck before she came along to get it. The conversations always end the same, with you in your bed curled up to the sound of her voice and the words that send a jolt of electricity down your spine:

“I’ll see you soon, Strider.”

You have no idea what she means by that. Or half the things she says, actually, but it’s fantastic nonetheless. The time span you have to think about it isn’t a huge one anyway. When you finally return to work the following Monday, you find out exactly what she meant.

 

* * *

 

Bedraggled by a car-chase worthy of an Oscar with a particularly dedicated photographer, you’re touched to be greeted warmly by your reception staff though you can’t help but raise an eyebrow at the way they mutter amongst themselves and give you sideways glances as you rifle some paperwork regarding your new chair. The object, you’re told, has arrived safely with the charge directed to your personal bank account. It’s getting to the point now where you don’t even read the numbers on the page; you know you can handle it.

 

As you slide your keycard down into the slot, you sniff the air in vain for the scent that started this whole scenario and are greeted only with the unmistakeable smell of leather. On entering, weary before the day has even properly started you have to heave a sigh.

Everything is in its rightful place and the chair is here as it had been for a while indicated by the paperwork, but in the week you were gone no one thought to move it so that it wasn’t facing the wall. It was beyond you why anyone would even put it there in the first place, but that was your industry – highly trained and well-polished individuals didn’t always come with the bonus of common sense.

 

Hanging up your jacket on the back of the door means turning your back on it, though that was only your second mistake: the first was not paying more attention to it in the first place, namely the pair of purple platforms swinging like pendulums on the bottom of two milk-white legs barely visible at the foot of it.

You busy yourself with your sound-system, trying to find something noxious to power you through your proof reading and blissfully unaware as the seat of the chair turns to face your back occupied by one Rose-Lalonde, fresh from her manicure and eyeing your scrawny rump with a mischievous grin and a look that could kill. You might have noticed sooner if your manuscript was where you left it. You were _sure_  you put it on top of your box of shrunken heads.

Needless to say when you finally turn around you nearly shit yourself.

“Good morning, Strider,” She purrs, crossing her legs and waving your manuscript at you in greeting. Every hair on the back of your neck stands to attention at the recognition of that voice. If there was any doubt of who this could possibly be it’s certainly gone now.

“Rose?” You gulp. “I mean, Lalonde?”

“Yes.”

“Yes?”

“Yes.”

“What?”

She raises an eyebrow and smirks. “What do you mean, ‘what’? How did I get in? How did I escape your security yet again? How did I manage to work my way through eighteen pages of your horribly scrappy handwriting in a mere half-hour?”

“Why are you wearing my shirt?”

“Oh.” She frowns and looks down at the fabric apprehensively. “Well you left it here. I was feeling overdressed.” A delicate hand flourishes towards your en-suite. “I left my dress in there. Have you ever worn anything like a pencil skirt?” Her nose wrinkles in disgust. “ _Horribly_ restricting.”

“Are you even wearing a skirt under that?”

“We’re all friends here.”

“That’s a no, then. Out of the chair, now.”

“What?”

“Butt off my chair, I don’t want your skanky ass-sweat all over my soft furnishings, even if we are on first-name terms. You have to earn the no-pants-on-the-chair privilege.”

She pouts, but you stay firm. “Behave, girl.” With an eye-roll she stands to her full height and stretches. You note that she’s still shorter than you by a long way even in the heels. Looks like you don’t get to find out her age just yet.

“Aren’t you even going to ask about my brilliant sneaking-in skills?”

“Not really. You’re kind of here now, what’s the point?” If she wants to play a game like this is nothing, you’ll be game. And you’ll win. “Hope you like Snoop Dogg, I write my best work when I’m thinking about bitches and cars.”

“Oh, same. Definitely.”

“Yeah, thought so. That gangster vibe was definitely coming through with the wizard shit.”

“You loved it.”

“Yeah,” you admit with a shrug and a half-smile, leaning back against your shelving unit. “I guess I kind of did.”

You watch her face as she finally drops eye-contact, staring into her knees as she tries to stifle a smile and a soft flush across her cheeks. When she looks to you again, you gain a new respect for the colour purple. “Thank you.” She says quietly. “It’s nice to-“

“To have someone read all your shit and actually understand what it was about?”

She laughs and oh _god_ it’s so much better in person. “No, titsucker, to meet you. It’s nice to meet you in the flesh at last.”

You regard the small woman standing half-naked in your office and think about how far she must have come and how brave she must have been to find you. You’ve known her barely a month, spoken to her for just over a week, and been in her presence for literally a few minutes and yet you can’t shake the feeling you’ve known her all your life.

“Yeah,” You say, finally giving her your first genuine smile in a while. “Same.”

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ...and u can bet that the 'no-pants-on-chair' privilege will be making a return at some point  
>  that rating isn't there for no reason I proimse


	4. Dates and disaster.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It could only be so long before I thrust some angst in your faces  
> THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR ALL THE LOVELY FEEDBACK ON THIS!!! YOU PEOPLE ARE SO KIND!

And so it came to be that Dave Strider met Rose Lalonde and two like-minded, lonely individuals found something like companionship in each other.

It was to be simultaneously the start of something healthy for the both of them and something exhausting for the paparazzi, all the while never quite being enough.

 

* * *

 

As you begin to spend more and more time with Rose Lalonde, you begin to learn important things. The first is this:

Rose Lalonde the entity and Rose Lalonde the girl are not the same person.

As an entity, a _being_ , she is sophisticated to her last fibre. A tiny waist bisecting curves that should be illegal on a girl that petite and movements so fucking _fluid_ that she could have crawled straight out of the sea and you wouldn’t have thought twice about it. Devoted to her fans and the victim of endless press-events and signings she cuts a striking figure in a seemingly endless wardrobe of black dresses. It’s unfathomable to think that somehow she escaped your notice before but then again, this is you: you never paid much attention to the celebrity world even before you were part of it. One man wolf-pack, Riding solo, Family of one-

Yeah no, sorry. This was supposed to be about Rose and how you managed to be unaware of her existence for so long. How _you_ , a man who was supposed to be observant, managed to miss a woman who was so critically acclaimed that she’d been on pretty much every talk-show in the country and shaken more peoples hand’s than you’d had your dick in. It was common knowledge that you kept to yourself, but you’d never thought of yourself as a recluse until now – one of many ways just being around her made you feel _stupid_ sometimes.

Rose Lalonde the celebrity was a national sweetheart, a friend to all children, and the ultimate dream-mannequin for every ballgown-designer in the world: a woman anyone would be proud to have on their arm. She spent her days away from the keyboard at charity events and in high-profile department stores, probably buying ‘ _’’’’avocados’’’’’_ and other exotic shit like that.

Rose Lalonde the girl, however, was slightly different. Scratch that, _totally_ different.

Rose Lalonde the girl was a person with a strict aversion to pants and whined like a toddler whenever she was reprimanded for not wearing them. She was juvenile, silly, and always the prime subject whenever any of your food disappeared from the refrigerator. _(“It is magic, Dave. Magic made it disappear.”_ _“I just can’t believe you ate an entire bucket of yoghurt just to spite me.”)_ She sat with her legs spread wide on other peoples (Yours) couches fearlessly and frequently didn’t bother to brush her hair for days on end. Her days were _rarely_ spent away from her keyboard or one of many notebooks and when she _did_ take rare breaks they would only be to wander aimlessly around your apartment in nothing but underwear (Again, sometimes yours.), an oversized sweater, and fluffy knitted bedsocks complaining that the only coffee you had in the place was de-caff.

Rose Lalonde the celebrity struck an elegant profile in heels under the spotlight. _Your_ Rose snored messily on your chest in the glow of a crappy 80’s action flick and mumbled obscenities in her sleep whilst you looked on hopelessly in something like admiration.

It goes without saying that your favourite is the one no one else gets to see. You have claimed her: one of these days you may even pee on her to mark your territory, but it’s early days yet. Don’t want to be getting into anything too serious. Once you pee on a girl, there’s no going back.

You feel like you’ve known her for longer than you have. Like, _much_ longer. Your whole life longer. You try not to think about it.

 

* * *

 

Surprisingly, it was one of the most productive days you’d had in a while. In between watching her with a dangerous curiosity as she glided around the room with all the grace and power of a shark-ballerina, you found editing to be more fun with someone to talk to. She’d direct you back to your desk with a gentle push every time you veered towards the sound-system or would indulge you by laughing at even your worst jokes when you were getting bored. Though neither thought to speak it, you both knew it was for the purpose of bonding. She would not discuss your political opinions or the messages in your work for a while yet: she would simply be there while you were there so that the two of you had a chance to get used to what it meant to work as a twosome, both being long out of practice.  You found it refreshing, even if you were slightly on edge for most of it.

Because as much as you enjoy her company, in the flesh she’s not exactly as much of a relaxing person to be around as she is on the phone.

The _idea_ of Rose Lalonde is a calming, soothing one. Her voice is smooth and her movements light and in your mind’s eye you are able to replicate her when you’re stressed. When she’s around you though, you have to deal with the fact that half the time she has within her little body the harnessed power of a young greyhound and it can be tiring trying to keep up. It’s fortunate that you like a challenge. The paparazzi, too, will soon appreciate just how game you are.

 

* * *

  

The problem with a high-profile lady stepping out with anyone is that immediately all her fans are going to want to know about it. When a high-profile lady steps out with an equally high-profile male that rarely attends his _own_ release-parties, let alone other people’s public events, all her fans and anyone with the slightest hint of curiosity (And by that you mean literally _everyone)_ is going to want to know about it. You become the pap’s most wanted ‘couple’ literally overnight after someone caught you leaving the office with her that first day. Refusing to comment on it only made matters worse, and to add insult to injury she encouraged the whole thing. The next time you saw her it was in a double-page spread of a gossip magazine thrust under your nose by your PR people sporting copycat shades and a cheeky wink for the cameras. By the end of the week she was allegedly carrying your lovechild and the two of you had plans to move in together in a small townhouse in central London.

“ _Rose Lalonde cannot answer your call right now! Please leave a message after the tone.”_

And oh, you left her a fucking message alright.  Her retaliation came in the form of being ‘accidentally spotted’ leaving one of the most famous wedding-gown boutiques in the city, complete with an ‘ _embarrassed’_ blush as she ducked into her car.

You are sure this woman will be the death of you, but you had still let her in when she’d come knocking at the door of your apartment in the early hours of the morning. Granted, she was carrying a ‘Friends’ box-set and a bottle of cheap champagne, but given that she’s kind of the only human you tolerate out of choice you’d have let her in anyway. Eventually you’ll start buying the gossip magazines off your own back just to check up on her public appearances. Half of the responses in the ‘W _hat were they wearing?_ ’ section regarding Lalonde are soon sent by you. At least half of _those_ contain the phrase _‘fly booty’_ or ‘ _bangin_ ’ _tatas_ ’. She cuts them out and sticks them to a special board in your office when she’s there.

Eventually you give up on avoiding the cameras and just take her out from time to time, usually to ridiculous places. You take her to Burger King and push her into the children’s play area, laughing hysterically as she drowns in a sea of coloured plastic in the ball-pit and in return she takes you to a local farm and photographs every animal penis in plain sight using _your_ camera, commenting loudly on every digitally-captured ballsack regardless of the amount of children around as if she thinks she can possibly embarrass you. Sometimes your ‘dates’ are less silly, just to feed the media rumours of course, and you’ll pick her up at 7 in a tux to take her out to dinner where you both play at being adults. The portions are always measly and overpriced, both of you waiting until the coast is clear and she can change into shoes that aren’t 7-inches high in the car back to yours or hers whilst you order her some _real_ food from the all-night McDonalds drive thru.

You are not sure when, but eventually you stop doing it for the cameras. She spends many a happy Sunday afternoon coiled up somewhere in your apartment reading while you hoover or lets you into her own home so you can laugh at her shoe-collection while she knits scarves so ironically ugly it would be a crime not to wear them. These times aren’t loud and reckless, but they are your favourite anyway. Dave Strider and Rose Lalonde are the height of speculation in the public eye, but they are miles away when Dave and Rose are safely tucked behind thick walls eating popcorn and painting each other’s toenails.

( _“What kind of dope-ass colour is this shit?”_

_“ ‘Peacock sunrise’. “_

_“Peacock-fuckin’-sunrise, aw yeah.”_

_“I thought you would approve. I know how you do so_ love _a good metallic shimmer.”_

_“Stop talking, you’re getting this shit all over the sides of my toes. I don’t want to look like some cheap $2 whore, Rose, you do that shit and you do it good and proper. Yeah, that’s right. You get your concentration on.”)_

You still can’t shake the feeling you’ve known her forever. Sometimes she falls asleep with her head on your chest in front of the TV, sometimes you fall asleep with your head on hers, but rarely do you fall asleep together and rarer still do you stay that way. You’ve woken in her bed fully-clothed several times and woken to find her still sleeping in yours several more but mainly you resign yourselves to the couch. After all, you’re comrades. You’re adults, not teenagers, you tell yourself as you watch her expressions change in the early-morning glow from the window.

Rose Lalonde is your best friend. She’s your _only_ friend, and you intend to keep her that way.

 

* * *

 

“Don’t you think it’s strange?” You ask one such morning as she stirs in your arms. She’s wearing your hoody and little else, but you shoulder is too dead from the weight of her there all night to justify the effort it would take to shove her off. Moments like this are few and precious, you wouldn’t wake her for the world.

“Mm? What?” Her lips part in a yawn as she scratches at your bare chest, trying and failing to find some fabric to bury herself into before she realises she’s rubbing your nipples. You swallow and ignore it.

“Us.” You force out, “Don’t you think this… thing is weird? Weird as balls?”

She quirks her eyebrow at you. “Are you still drunk?”

“No. I don’t think so at least. Who knows? Maybe I’ve been drunk forever and just deceiving you all this time.”

“It would certainly explain your lack of co-ordination and the way you babble incoherently to yourself. What a revelation, I’m surprised I didn’t twig sooner.”

You smile but you can’t hide the creases in your forehead from her watchful eye as she stretches and crawls further on top of you. You watch her through half-closed eyes as she analyses your everything, closing them fully as she reaches out and strokes the stubble on your cheek lightly. Her expression softens when you murmur quietly into her touch and you drink it up. “What do you mean?”

That same lump in your throat reappears and you swallow it back down. Maybe now isn’t the best time, but it’s just been bugging you so much and it’s beginning to interfere with times like right now when really all you should be thinking about is how nice it is to spend time with another person.

“I mean I feel like I’ve known you my entire life, Lalonde, and we literally met like a couple of months ago.” You know you’re babbling and you should probably stop but once you’ve started you just _can’t._ It’s just too easy with her. “Don’t you think that’s strange? I mean I’m not a guy with a lot of experience in the friendship department but this… stuff like this, this here. This is pretty intimate for people who have known each other for such a short space of time and we’re not even…” You pause to grimace. “You know… doing the full nasty. In fact, I’m not sure we’d be this close if we were doing all that stuff if I wasn’t me and you weren’t you. It just seems so-“ A finger comes down over your lips to silence you, and you have a job to draw your eyes up from the zipper on the jacket she’s wearing as it strains against her chest, threatening to expose more than she bargained for.

“It seems like we’ve been this way forever,” She mutters, “And now we are, it makes sense why everything was so lonely before.”

Perfectly simple and yet summarising perfectly in all the ways you could never hope to. Two pairs of eyes meet and search each other for a long time before you’re aware of how close her face is to yours.

“I think I knew you before I met you.” Eventually says a voice too small to be your own. You’re not sure where it came from, but it causes her eyes widen in something like fear and you instantly regret it. “Do you know what I mean, Rose?”

“Go back to sleep, Strider.”

“Okay.”

But there is a horrible feeling in your gut that suggests it’s everything _but_ okay.

Regardless, sleep comes easy when she’s there to watch over you and you drift off fast, trying to forget that conversation ever happened. As your thoughts go fuzzy, you swear you feel something wet on your cheek but by the time you wake again her chest is rising and falling steadily atop yours and you decide to let it go. At this point, you feel this cycle of sleep, wake, and forget summarises your relationship with her perfectly. You tell yourself you don’t mind.

 

You get used to going out. Sometimes you even do it without her just to see what it’s like, trying to make an influence on the press as your sequel finally finishes production. It will be good publicity. That doesn’t mean you have to enjoy it, though you try to. 

You wait for her to call you after you’re photographed leaving a nightclub at 2am on a Tuesday with some brunette you didn’t know the name of. You wait for her to ask about how you fucked her into your mattress and you wait for her to scold you for being reckless and silly without her because that was supposed to be _your_ thing. She never does, but she’s back in your office by the Thursday with a cheeky smile. You think deep down you wanted her to miss you. In reality, it worked the opposite way and you find yourself grabbing her by the waist and spinning her in a corny embrace right there next to the desk, burying your face in her neck as she laughs at you for behaving like you haven’t seen her in a year. You try to ignore the way her fingers linger on your shoulder when you put her down, ignore the way her face softens briefly when you tell her despite your intentions not to mention it that this town is no fun without her around, and definitely ignore the way your heart pounds when she says she missed you too.

You ignore the lurch in your stomach when you read that she was seen in a similar situation with a mystery suitor the following night. It’s ridiculous, but you find your main anguish from the situation stemming from the realisation that you’re desperately hoping she woke up before he did so that he didn’t get to see how scruffy her hair was in the morning or the way she wrinkled her nose when she yawned. You don’t care that someone else could be hers so much as you care that she could be so much as _seen_ in her most natural state by eyes that weren’t yours. It’s juvenile, but you find yourself wanting to hide her away from the world. She makes you selfish and you hate it but can’t bring yourself to blame her for it.

The papers begin to document that there’s  scandal within your relationship and she reads the articles aloud to you, laughing so hard when she gets to the parts where they debate whether or not your ‘engagement’ will be called off that tears roll down her cheeks. You force a smile and pretend you’re just stressed about the impending film-release when she asks why you look somewhat pained.

It becomes more important to you that the time you spend is for _you_ rather than the cameras. She laughs at you even harder for being a pussy but she doesn’t object.

You need to distance your perception of your relationship with her from the one in the newspapers and the magazines before the lines start to cross and you start to hurt, you tell yourself. You’re getting really fucking sick of having cameras taking high-res pictures of your nose-hair, you tell her.

You tell yourself repeatedly that _you don’t care_ , she’s not yours and you don’t need her to be. Just because it _feels_ like you’ve had her around forever that doesn’t stop her from being just another girl, just another stranger with relatable baggage and endearing bad habits. Just because she’s the first friend you’ve ever had, that doesn’t mean you’re hers.

Intimacy is fucking with your head, and for a while you manage to turn the heat down. She, however, has other plans. Your break from closeness doesn’t last as long as you need it to.

 

* * *

 

 “How many girls have you fucked?” She asks out of the blue one evening as if its nothing, draped across your lap as you channel-hop. The both of you have had a few to drink, enough to make T.V-time fun and work stress non-existent. You decide on QVC: there’s a man with a combover trying to sell you a barbeque _. Good shit._

“None, the only children in my mouth have ever been sour-patch-kids.” You reply, tangling a hand in her hair idly. “I’ve fucked a decent amount of women though.”

She hums and closes her eyes. You try not to watch. “Mmm. And of those women… how many did you make love to?”

You laugh at that, tucking a strand behind her ear. “I don’t have feelings, feelings are gay.”

“What’s wrong with gay?”

“Fuck all is wrong with gay, but I’m not.”

She offers no reply until you prod her lightly in the round of her cheek and even then it’s merely a grumble. “So?”

“So what?”

“Why do you ask?”

“Curiosity I suppose.”

“Well, what about you?”

There’s a long pause where each of you pretend to be interested in the range of cookware the guy on the TV has moved onto offering you for the other’s sake. Eventually she gives you an answer though it comes not so much in her words but the low, venomous tone she speaks them in.

“People like us don’t get to fall in love, Dave.”

Without warning, her entire body language has changed. She’s stiff on your legs, face tilted to the floor so you can’t see it and though they’re dangling over the edge of the couch, you can tell from the tension in her shoulders and upper arms that she’s clenched her fists. Confused, you move your hands to her body and try to pull her upwards to no avail. She’s not playing games.

“Careful, Lalonde.” A voice more gentle than you were expecting comes out of your mouth as your fingers glide to her shoulder blades and move over her arms in a motion you can only hope comes across as soothing and not as hopelessly awkward as you feel. “Got close to going real dark there for a second, girl…”

You trace circles on her skin through the fabric of her (Your.) shirt and cup her cheek with your free hand. “Hey, c’mon Lalonde. Don’t go silent on me you know I can’t deal with-“

“What if I _am_ a dark person, Dave?” She snaps, rolling so that she lies looking up at you with fierce intent. Strands of white-blonde hair stick out at odd angles around her face and her bangs are out of place. The shirt she’s wearing is riding up around her hips and the crease in her leggings where her thigh meets her crotch is clearly visible but these are details you hardly notice because her eyes are fixed on you in a way you’ve never seen before and it’s _frightening_.

When Rose Lalonde looks you in the eye, it’s a challenge. It’s a stare full of determination that emanates from the power in her soul and it is _strong_ and _ferocious_ and _defiant._

And now there’s these eyes, these same eyes that are looking at you with such a sense of desperation that you’re _choked_ because what kind of thing has to happen to a person to give them such an agony within them that you can feel it just by looking at it and how can such a look exist on the girl you were playing Jenga with in the bathroom just half an hour ago?

It’s confusing and terrifying to you that these two looks can belong to the same eyes - that these two _parts of a human_ can co-exist inside her tiny frame beneath her fragile bones without entirely shattering her from the inside. You don’t want to consider the prospect that such a thing may already be happening to her, but as her lower lip begins to tremble, teeth clamping down on it to stop herself as her lower lashes darken with the moisture of tears it becomes more reasonable by the second.

And you never even noticed until now, hopelessly playing along with a charade of light-heartedness that was no more real than the act she put on for the public while you pitied yourself for appreciating charms that may never have been genuine in the first place. You are such an _ass._

“What then?” Her voice wavers and a tear threatens to spill over her lashes and onto her cheek, bringing you back. “What if I’m- I’m…“

 

You can’t deal with watching this.

You hold her to your chest as she shudders with sobs and feel the overbearing weight of what it means to be an adult for the first time in your life. It’s everything you never wanted to know but at the same time somehow you don’t resent her for showing you. You wonder how long she’s been waiting to fall to pieces like this and though you’re frightened you’re relieved that it’s your arms she’s collapsing into and not some stranger’s she’s falling against because you would hate for her to have a harsh landing because she’s probably had so many already because it must be so difficult to be so secretly fragile in a world that demands that you be _sturdy_ because even if she’s deceived you, you’d rather have this broken, miserable version of Rose Lalonde than the fake one everyone else gets because…

Because…

Because you _care_ about Rose Lalonde.

She chokes and sniffs into your t-shirt, dampening the collar and burying her mascara-streaked face in the crook of your neck as she howls without reservation. By now her hair is a little wet at the front too and she’s looking like a total trainwreck, but you _totally_ do not give one single shit.

The realisation, finally clear, hits you like a punch to the nose. You _care_ about her. You care about the girl on the talkshows, you care about the girl who writes like a dream, about the girl who yells when you’re out of nachos and tried to rope you into starting a revolution by stealing an office chair and nearly suffocating herself with the vilest perfume known to man.

And that means you care about the girl in your lap, too. The one sobbing like a maniac because the world is a cruel place and she’s had one too many glasses of Bordeaux and the one who is ruining your favourite tee with the facepaint you tell her routinely she doesn’t need to wear in the first place.

What if there is a girl in the bouquet amongst all the other Roses that’s a little darker than the others? You’re pretty sure you can find the time to care about that one, too. You realise you’d clear out everyone and anyone else in your heart if she needed more space for you to love her better.

But for now, she just needs you to hold her. And you will.

“Come here, you daft shit.” You coo into her ear, rubbing her back and rocking her back and forth. “Wouldn’t care if you had three eyes, eighteen toes and a passion for necromancy.  Still Lalonde.” It’s painfully sincere and though you’re trying to make her laugh she knows it as well as you do and it only serves to make her wail even more. ”Still Lalonde, still my Lalonde.” You reapeat as heat prickles in the corners of your eyes. “Come on, Rose. You’re gonna make me start in a minute. Next time I’m giving you one single babycham and nothing more because if this is what wine is going to turn you into I-“

She leans up and pulls your face down to hers, crushing her mouth against your lips in a way you’re sure is going to leave a bruise and though you mumble against her face in protest it’s starting to feel kind of _nice_. Too stunned to do anything else, you end up simply slumping back into the couch and pulling her with you, kissing all down on her while she kisses all up on you. You’re not sure how long it lasts; after your lips start to tingle and you begin to enjoy it you stop thinking about what you’re doing and just let it happen. Although she’s straddling you, considering the image of her puppy-dog eyes is still burning in the foreground of your mind the whole thing isn’t hot enough to give you a boner but you don’t really mind that either. It’s fair to say that this whole thing with the feelings and then the mouthing escalated a lot faster than you were expecting for a simple night in front of the T.V so you’re not really sure what to do other than just shut up and take it like a man.

The thing is you’ve made out with more people than you can count, but you’ve never really _kissed_ anyone in a way that felt like you meant it until now because doing stuff that meant more than nothing meant responsibility and responsibility meant maturity. Her fingers search and pull at your arm until you take a hand off her back and let her interlace her fingers with yours, squeezing her hand lightly.  

Maybe there are parts of her that make you a better person despite the parts that make you selfish.

You eventually pull away to find her blinking in a disorientated manner but certainly not crying anymore. It’s progress. “I don’t mind.” You say, firmly. “If you’re dark on the inside or the outside or anywhere. I don’t mind.”

Reeling, she brings the hand you were holding to her forehead, severing your contact and looking anywhere but at you. For the second time in one night the feeling has changed almost instantly and you have to admit you’re kind of confused again. You’re looking at her with devotion but she’s definitely looking away with embarrassment and you’re pretty sure that’s not how it works in the movies. “Wow, we… I’m sorry, Strider. I don’t know what came over-“

“Don’t be.” You blurt, desperate to save this situation. “It’s cool. We can be that way, we can do that stuff. Whatever you want, Rose, we can… I can be whatever you want.”

She looks at you as if you are most pitiful thing she has ever seen and you can only stare back helplessly, fully aware that your hair is a mess and her lipstick is smeared all around your mouth.

“It’s the alcohol.” She announces suddenly, hopping off your lap and walking away to the kitchen as if nothing happened and you didn’t just share the most significant romantic encounter you have had to date with anyone. “Wow. _Wow._ New rule: we do not drink together again. _Ever.”_ Oh god. She’s laughing, you can hear her _laughing_ and you feel _sick. What the fuck just happened?_

Her back is rigid, proper posture resumed. You’re looking at the strong Rose now, but it’s not quite right because even though she’s over there acting as if it’s chill, you’re still stuck to the sofa slightly breathless and unable to move. Did you just get… rejected? After she initiated the whole thing?

“Okay.” You agree with her. _Why are you agreeing with her_?! “Okay.” What are you _doing_???

“Thanks.” She calls. You hear her flick the switch for the kettle and listen to the sound of her bare-feet sticking to on the wooden floor.

“Okay.” You mumble again, to yourself this time. “Okay.”

Later, she falls asleep in your arms again. You carry her to your bed and tuck her in, crawling in beside her and feeling the warmth of her body through the sheets she lies beneath and you lay on top of. You fall asleep as big spoon and wake to find with some embarrassment that you’re now little spoon, and you’re under the covers too.

_Shit._

Rose leaves your home as if nothing happened at all.

You stand outside and watch her car until it’s out of view.

All you can think about is how much it hurts that she wouldn’t let you drive her home.

 

* * *

 

The two of you keep your distance. You wonder if she hates it as much as you. The conclusion is ‘probably not’.

 

When the silence gets too much, you muster the courage to pay Rose an unannounced visit to her home and watch as she pulls the curtains of her living room back with interest as you lock up and open the boot. She hasn’t been by your office in a week and all you can get on her phone is voicemail. It’s safe to say that you’re not looking your best and your old-friends the eye bags have returned in full glory, but you still walk up to her front door with as much dignity as you can manage when you’re carrying the most enormous purple gift-box the store had to offer, complete with black satin ribbon. Among other things, there is an envelope with an invitation you would hope she’d be pleased to accept inside. You wish you could be there to watch her lithe fingers folding back the layers of tissue beneath it, but you understand that she needs her space and accept that even though you’re missing being able to fall asleep at night you probably need it too.

Shit’s getting deep, man. Pretty fucking deep and you didn’t bring your floaties.

You drive away as she opens the door. You don’t get to see her expression as you pull away and you don’t really want to.

You can only hope that she understands that while you can pretend it didn’t happen if that’s what she wants, for you it was very real and you meant what you said. All of it.

 

* * *

 

_Rose Lalonde turns the paper over in her hands several times, reading and re-reading words she wants to burn but at the same time cannot force herself to ignore._

_"I can be whatever you want." She reads aloud, caressing the bottom of the card where the printed details end and his messy scrawl begins with her index finger. "Just please don't leave me."_

_His lines blur as her eyes fill with tears and she hastily moves the paper as a droplet splashes onto it, threatening to smudge his handwriting._

_"I was so empty without you."_

_Though the words are there in plain sight, by now she is unable to determine whether when spoken they are his or hers._

_Shit._


	5. Guest appearance from a very nice shoe

Thus far you have been Dave Strider. You have marvelled almost daily at the stone woman who was thrust upon you at appaulingly short notice and nitpicked her habits from behind dark glass and an air that suggested, falsely, that you couldn’t care less. You have fallen under her spell and become a victim of her womanly womanness and devil-booby-magics.

You have heard more about this lady than you probably ever wanted to hear because right now you are Dave Strider and as Dave Strider you are thinking of little else but you of all people know that it can only be fun for so long before it gets irritating and you get an urge to slap yourself enthusiastically round the face several times with a chair in a final, desperate attempt to stop being such a fucking _pansy_.

Whilst you do a lot of stupid things, this particular bloody debacle is unlikely to be one of them (at this point in the story at least), which only really leaves one other option:

If you’re tired of hearing about her, why don’t you _become_ her?

 

* * *

**= >  _Be Rose Lalonde_**

* * *

 

Your name is Rose Lalonde and at any given point it is safe to assume you will be the shortest woman in the room or at the very least _would_ be if not for your taste for elaborately high footwear.

In any case, you don’t give a shit because this entitles you to a wardrobe full of ridiculously frivolous outfits and means that somehow you manage to look feminine and lovely in each and every one. The lady every man wants on his arm and every woman wants to burn at the stake: life is not always sweet, but your sickly grin definitely _is_ as you flash a two-finger salute to anyone and everyone that threatens to stand in your way.

There is enough information with regards to your past to write a saga, however you are not your rambling comrade and you like to keep things of a personal nature concise wherever possible, so you will summarise purely for the sake of keeping interest:

You were born to someone somewhere probably (though no actual records have ever been found), taken in by an orphanage with only your notebook for company until you were old enough to live by yourself. No one took so much as a second glance at you and you do not blame them: you did everything in your power to avoid being adopted, from scrawling eldritch on your walls in black eye-make up to colouring your own face in purple on more than one occasion. Up until the age of fifteen you had luscious, waist-length hair but a compliment from kindly aging couple was all it took for you to decide it would be far more convenient if you just hacked it all off with a pair of zig-zag craft scissors and though the style has been refined over time, short hair has remained a constant throughout your adult life. No one was sorry to see you walk out of the place as soon as it was legally viable. You consider it your first real personal achievement, the second being your first publishing deal.

The third is Dave.

You just wish you could remember why.

* * *

 

Nostalgia is looking into the eyes of your faithful companion as they do something they love and watching your memory erase the faint creases around their eyes until you can see them clearly in your minds eye, all dedication the same but their skin two decades younger. Nostalgia is a bittersweet reminder of the passage of time and nostalgia courses through your veins doing strange and not entirely unpleasant things to your heart when you watch the way his brow creases in concentration as he mixes you pseudo-lullabies that you’ll probably hate on his turntables. You know he’s strong because you know he’s carried you to bed when you’ve been the one to fall asleep first on more than one occasion, pretending to be fully under through half-lidded eyes as you feel the rock of your body in his arms and trying not to think about how warm he makes you feel when you’re close to him. Despite the evidence, it’s hard to see him as anything other than just another lanky guy in headphones as he buzzes around the table, fingers nearly as light on the decks as he is on his feet. Later he’ll surprise you from behind and hold the ‘phones to your ears despite your cries of objection as dirty electro bubbles through your brain in the _least_ relaxing way possible. You’ll be hit with yet another wave of nostalgia as you watch the corner of his mouth crease from the effort of suppressing a smile at your reaction and you’ll feel a silent pang of grief for the kid he’ll never be again, and that’s okay: feelings are okay and nostalgia has its place.

You’re just a little confused about why you’re feeling it for a person you’ve known for under six months and its drawing on memories that you’re pretty sure aren’t _yours_.

He looks up, aware of your gaze burning on his bowed head, and his eyes widen in concern. Ah. You’re frowning again. You hadn’t noticed. “You okay over there?” He asks in a mumble so quiet you wonder how people with less exposure to him than yourself can even hear him most days, pulling his headphones back to rest around his neck.

With more effort than you’d have hoped to admit you force a smile and nod, looking down into the empty cup clasped firmly between your hands. “Yes, it’s… nothing. Yes, I’m fine.”

Though he watches you through tinted glass you can feel the movement of his eyes on your body as he scans you for little tell-tale signs in your body language. You’re unconvincing and you know it but thankfully after a moment of staring you up and down he throws you a quizzical look and pulls his headphones back on, scruffing up his hair in the process but not seeming to care.  You notice the looks he sneaks at you out of the corner of his eye from the corner of yours, both of you unable to focus on your respective tasks at hand for entirely different reasons.

Dave Strider is a full-grown man but you can’t stop imagining him as a thirteen year old boy.

 

Maybe he’s right.

Maybe you should see a doctor.

* * *

 

You wake in a cold sweat, panting as if you just ran a marathon and with utterly no recollection of _why._ The clock on his bedside table flares a garish red display at your bleary eyes as you struggle to figure out if not why then at what ungodly hour your nightmares have woken you this time.

“4:42.” Comes the groggy reply from the manchild beside you, his words muffled by the pillow he’s currently face down in. You check the clock: he’s right. He’s always right. Glancing at him, he looks the same as he did only several minutes prior. You have to wonder if he was even asleep at all.

“How did you know that?”

“Dunno.” He groans, rubbing his head into the fabric and clumsily smacking his hand around your general direction until he finds your waist, trying to pull you to him. Probably, anyway. You actually have no idea what he’s doing right now but that’s tired Dave for you. You’re pretty used to it by now. Finding his prize, it appears you were half right as he attempts to pull _himself_ to _you_ instead, ending up clinging to your waist and grumbling into your side. “’Nightmares again?”

You swallow the lump in your throat and nod as your hand comes down to stroke at his hair. For hair that’s been abused with bleach for so long, it always surprises you how soft it still is.  “Nothing awful.” _It’s not a lie if you can’t remember_. “Go back to sleep.”

Man-child-cat, nuzzling at your side, couldn’t take a hint if you threw it at his face. “What was it about? Wizards and shit? Press conferences?”

You laugh weakly, too tired to snap and simply tell him to shut up, and allow your hand to wander down to his back and circle the toned flesh it finds there. “Most likely. I’m afraid I often have trouble remembering them. Go back to sleep, Strider.”

“Not gonna argue with that,” He mumbles, bringing his head up to rest on your stomach. You roll your eyes but the warmth he provides is a comfort. In minutes he’s silent but for the sounds of his gentle breaths. His skin beneath your fingertips is firm as you continue attempting to find comfort there. You trace his shoulderblades, the delicate musculature visible through the lean surface, and draw more circles than you can count. Circles, circles all over the back of his chest like huge round gaping holes and-

And all too soon, you recall your dream in vivid detail: Your hand slipping _into_ his skin – no, a hole, there’s a hole through his chest –fingers seeping into his mangled torso and pulling out with a wet splash as droplets of his blood hit the both of you. His face is pale and his glasses are smashed but you can still hear the last of his rasping breaths and –

You race from the bedroom to his bathroom just in time to watch yesterdays dinner fill the sink, panting with a hysterical desperation into the basin as your fingers fumble for the lock on the door with laboured effort. In _seconds_ his fists are pounding the door and you can hear the fear in his voice as he yells your name in confusion.

“Rose?!” You can see him in your mind, eyes wide and mouth open like a scared animal.

“I’m fine.” You call back, the hoarseness in your throat doing nothing to preserve your faux-sincerity.  “Just… give me a minute.” Even if sluggish, your shaking hands seem to have locked the door. You’re thankful for their efforts. His efforts are less of a blessing.

“No, let me in.” He continues. You hear him try to pull the door to no avail.

“I’m fine.” You repeat.

“Rose-“

“I’m _fine.”_ You’re firm with your tone and it comes out scolding – though unintended, you don’t regret it. He’s silent for a moment and you wonder if he’s left you but the faint shuffling outside the door a few minutes later provides evidence otherwise. The sound of fabric on wood as he slides down the door on the other side is followed swiftly by the thud of his head against it. He’ll be pissed at you, you think, but at least with a lock on the door you can buy yourself five minutes to clear the image of him, dead in your arms and God knows how much younger than he is right now from your mind. Ignoring the wrinkles in the corners of your eyes, you splash your face with water and wash the vomit from the sink. The girl in the mirror has bloodshot eyes and her mouth is pulled down at the corners too tightly to push back no matter how hard you try, pressing  the tips of your fingers against it in vain. She stares back with a blank expression. Though you’re one and the same the effort and failure makes it feel like you’re trying to save someone else.

“ _Please.”_ You whisper to your reflection. “Just let me _sleep. Please.”_

“Rose?”

His voice when it comes again is softer than you’d have expected. Although you know he means well, somehow that makes it worse. “You don’t… shit. You don’t have to come out. If you don’t want, I don’t know. Maybe you like it in there, in your fucking watery element or whatever.” You muster a weak laugh for his sake and hear a breath catch in his throat from the other side. “Rose?” He croaks again.

“Yes. It’s alright, Dave.”

“Okay.”

As your knees begin to shake and buckle beneath you, adrenaline wearing off, you allow yourself to sink to the ground, curling up beside the cistern of his toilet and staring blankly into the knots of the wood that make up the door. Pathetic and inelegant is a sensation that gives you a bizarre sense of freedom. Perhaps you should try it more often. Perhaps you’ll stay here for a while.

It occurs to you at some point between deep breaths, be it minutes or hours, that you’ve yet to hear him move. Brow raised, you call shakily. “Dave?”

There is a frantic scrambling from the other side as you hear what you presume to be him rising to his feet.

“Yep, still here. You okay?”

His earnest tone brings a twitch to the corner of your mouth. “I’m still fine.”

He laughs, albeit quietly. “Yeah? That makes two of us, I guess.”

There’s a pause not quite long enough to be uncomfortable before he  speaks again, uncertainty lacing his words in a way that doesn’t suit him in your mind. “Rose? You wanna open the door yet, girl?”

Your body is finally co-operative as you use your hands to pull yourself up, wobbling slightly as you stand. A check in the mirror to smooth your hair and wipe the mascara from your lower lashes is well overdue and probably not worth it given that you’ll be back in semi-darkness when you leave, but you indulge regardless.

He’s not dead. He’s outside, ridiculous as when you first met him which was, if you’ll remember correctly, when he was already a fully grown man. He’s never worn a raglan shirt, there’s no evidence on his chest of scars where he’s been stabbed, and you’ve certainly never had his blood on your hands.  

He’s safe. You’re safe. It was just a dream.

With trembling fingers, you slide the bar across and unlock the door. He’s opened it before you get the chance and stands, lingering awkwardly in the doorframe as you watch each other for a moment.

“Hi.” He rasps.

“Hi.” You reply with similar enthusiasm.

He shifts his weight from left to right, waiting for you to say something. You’re too busy staring intently into his bare chest for the slightest hint of a mark. The skin is as deliciously smooth as ever. ‘ _He is safe,’_ You repeat to yourself. ‘ _We are safe_.’ The bags beneath his eyes are returning, albeit slowly. Perhaps it’s just the light but you feel guilty regardless, not that you have reason to be. It’s not like he ever slept any better without you.

Well, you’ve no reason to be guilty for the bags but you suppose the expression is probably your fault. When your eyes finally meet his you’re surprised to see them shining and red at the corners. They dance in their sockets, scanning you in a way too frenzied to be comfortable and his lips remain slightly parted. The worst part, though, is the shaking. He trembles like a frightened animal. You have scared him and for that you hate yourself and him in equal parts: he’s not allowed to be afraid; it was _you_ that had to suffer visions of a life without him. Still, to be so visibly pained by your episode is something you can’t ignore. You didn’t even know he could _be_ scared, not properly. It seems naive now, when his terror is quite literally staring you in the face, but the thought previously never even crossed your mind.

“Time for bed.”  You declare, playing the adult as your hands gingerly reach up to his shoulders and push him backwards. He’s obedient with your prompting, eyes unblinking and never leaving yours. He nods all the way there, falling onto his back at the foot of the mattress and pulling you with him with more force than you were expecting given his feeble demeanour. Your reflexes only just save your chin from colliding with his, hands springing out to prop yourself up so that you hover above him whilst he stares groggily back up at you. Taking your weight on one hand, you run the other through his hair in an effort to calm him. It seems to be working as the wildness in his eyes dims and his eyelids remember to blink every so often. Still, though, he watches you. He watches you as if he’s scared you’ll disappear and that makes _you_ scared that you might disappear. You want to stay here. You want to stay in Dave’s room with the lights down and away from all the evil in the world forever and bitterness twists in your gut as your brain reminds your heart that you simply cannot. He breaks you from your train of thought with a hand reaching up to stroke your cheek, his thumb barely touching the flesh.

“Worry about you sometimes..” He whispers in a voice you didn’t even know he _had._ His eyes flicker shut and for a heart-stopping moment you think you’re about to start hallucinating again but on closer inspection this is definitely your Dave: he just looks younger when he’s falling asleep. “Worry about you…” He repeats, too exhausted to know what he’s saying. You find it endearing anyway.

You stay awake to watch him for a while, drinking in the way his expression constricts and softens as he dreams of who even knows what. You watch the rise and fall of his chest beneath you and wonder how it’s possible that the boy who gets stressed out when you steal his shirts has it in him to be so stupidly _patient_ with you on nights like this. You hate yourself for assuming the worst in that this _idiot,_ this ridiculously _lovely_ creature sprawled out in front of you would be angry with you. You wonder if it’s possible for his mild irritation to _ever_ spiral into anger.

He mumbles in his sleep, smiling dopily at nothing. You really doubt it. Of course, you can’t tell him these things: he would become conceited. You smirk to yourself at the realisation that he’d sooner become proud than violent. If that was a flaw, it was one you could admire.

Letting yourself down atop his chest, you are overwhelmed with gratitude that you could meet such a companion and as it washes over you it brings fatigue with it in full force.

The last thing your eyes see before they close is the red display of his clock again.

7:28

You haven’t the energy to feel the guilt he’d hate you to have for keeping him up, too busy wasting it on wondering if he thinks that maybe you’re crazy as often you do.

On nights like this you’re glad you have the iron will it takes to not let him in, no matter how much sometimes you think you want to. He’s too easily hurt to take on the things you keep from his pretty, oblivious little head. Your perfect idiot.

* * *

 

You’re 17 and attending one of many dates you will share with overconfident young men and women that in years to come will probably spring to mind when you first meet Dave. The one right now though, he’s different.

(Of course he’s different. You’re hopeful and naïve, despite priding yourself falsely on being the opposite.)

He’s gentle, he’s kind. He reads poetry and doesn’t belittle you for your gender: an intellectual equal with whom you have spent many a happy hour in the window-seats of all kinds of coffee-houses, sipping hot drinks and discussing theatre that you’re currently both too trite to understand properly.

Today, though you don’t yet know it, will be your last date.

You are trying and failing to hide the sadness that has been rooted in you deeply for as long as you can remember. On some days it is easier than others, some days being the days when the sadness will shut up. Other days it’s almost as if it’s literally inside your mind, whispering in tongues you don’t and won’t understand until you decide to look into it further at some point in the coming year. He stares at you with concerned eyes as you drink quietly. You don’t know why you came – he is kind, but today you’d really rather be left alone.

“Rose…” He begins, his tone plaintive. You raise your eyes from your cup in response. He takes it as his cue to continue. You’d probably rather he didn’t. “I’ve been thinking. About… _us.”_

At this you roll your eyes and return your attention to your cup, drawing out the sip for as long as possible before answering. “Not this again: I’ve told you how I feel about relationships. Currently I’ve neither the time nor the stability in my own mind-“

“But that’s just it!” He cuts you off. You purse your lips. You _hate_ being interrupted. “That’s _it,_ Rose, this could be the difference!” And by ‘this’ he clearly means ‘me’. Your blood begins to boil.

“The difference in _what_ exactly?” You snarl. His enthusiasm doesn’t waver which only serves to aggravate you more: it means he’s taking no notice whatsoever of how you’re responding to this, just going off on his own little tangent. Trying to recreate some scene from a book he read once about a chipper young man and the wayward girl he bravely brought back from the edge of insanity like a proper fucking _hero._ Your stomach churns and you pass it off as anger despite the hurt bubbling in your chest. You thought it was going to be _different_ this time. You thought this one was _different._

“Rose…” He begins again. You let him, not even bothering to interject. If he’s going to make an ass of himself you may as well watch for your own amusement. Though his tone is confused, his eyes still shine in a way that lets you know it’s all for effect and you want to punch him in his stupid face. You wait for him to ask you to be his girlfriend, his lover, his _something –_ everything you didn’t want to be.

 

“Rose, why can’t you let me _save_ you?”

 

Your throat goes dry.

Okay that… that wasn’t what you were expecting.

Usually, you can handle them. These silly boys and their silly fantasies that revolve around the girl they make you out to be. Usually it is funny and you can turn their own misplaced sincerity against them but this time… the pang in your chest dulls and begins to throb into a kind of ache. For some reason your lower lip begins to tremble against your will and your legs feel like jelly.

This time, it _hurts_.

Thankfully, you recover your senses before you do something embarrassing like cry in public (oh good heavens no). Instead, you surprise the both of you by rising to your feet: maybe its adrenaline or maybe it’s a genuine fire in your soul but you’re too occupied to ponder it at present. A voice not entirely your own growls through your curled lip and your brows knit downwards into the single most vicious scowl you have achieved to date. He’s visibly afraid as you slam your hands down on the table, look at him as all the _scum_ you never wanted him to be, and hiss your response:

“Because I don’t need _saving.”_

You storm out of the shop, slamming the door behind you and leaving the patrons frantically questioning each other as to _what just happened_ as you stalk down the street with as much composure as you can manage. You silence the thoughts in the back of your head that long for the thunder of footsteps from behind that mean he’s chasing after you and save your tears until you’re safely within the confines of your dormitory. Once inside, after jamming the key against the lock unsuccessfully several times in your frenzy, you weep luxuriously into your hands and curse your aching chest, repeating it over and over again as unseen forces take advantage of your emotional state and whisper cruel things into your ears:

“I don’t need saving. I _don’t_ need saving. I don’t. I _don’t.”_

You cry for hours. It starts over your stupid boy-problems, evolves into his stupid saving comments, and finally you find yourself screaming into a pillow about every misfortune and every moment of anguish you have ever experienced in your life. Eventually that dissolves into feeble grizzling about how _pathetic_ you are for even caring about any of it. You fall asleep with wet cheeks wishing you could unlock the drive in yourself to be a bigger person, a girl like the ones you write about.

And somehow in letting it all out, while you’re sleeping it apparently finds _you._

The next day you wake up in yesterday’s clothes with a fresh resolve. You skip class, take a long bath, and swear to yourself you’ll never kid yourself that you need anyone else to be happy ever again.

Naked in the mirror, you weave a hand into your choppy hair and remember the day you cut it all off. Your desk is littered with exercise books full of concepts that yesterday you were too shy to admit had potential, and there is a smile on your face though no one stands beside you.

And you’re going to be okay, you tell yourself. You can do this. You can live.

You’re not searching, you’re not waiting. When something or someone good happens you will know it but in the meantime you can be _you_ without their help.

Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you will be your own best friend for the next ten years or so if it kills you. You’ll value loyalty over affection and sincerity over well-wishing. You’ll come out stronger and you’ll become a woman that _you_ can respect, even if no one else can.

* * *

 

The paper crinkles beneath your fingers. Paper crunching in your hands is a simple, tactile pleasure that you hope you never tire of but this doesn't change the fact that it’s still an _obscenely_ large box.

_Just like him to make a big deal out of nothing._

With an obligatory eye-roll, you curb your enthusiasm and reach into the depths, stopping only when your fingers brush black velvet.

 _Shoes_?

You frown and pull one out. Yes, genius, it’s definitely a shoe and it’s… a _nice_ shoe?

Wow, really on fire with the observations today: great job, Lalonde.

But seriously, it’s a _nice shoe_. You pull out its counterpart and gingerly slip one onto your bare foot.

Perfect fit. You don’t even _want_ to know how he’s figured out what size you are.

Seeing as you’re alone, you let yourself put the other one on and have a little trot up and down, feeling thoroughly silly for parading around in nothing but black velvet platforms and your nightshirt and enjoying it more than you probably should. Suddenly excited, you stomp back to the box and rifle it some more. You find a clutch by a foreign brand you’ve never heard of in matching fabric and neatly folded at the bottom is a dress that gives you a little lump in your throat when you pull it out.

At first glance you assume it’s black but on closer inspection and with the help of a better light source you realise that it’s actually a very deep purple, shimmering into a lighter shade in direct light. It doesn’t quite match your eyes, but if it did it would be tacky: this shade will, however, _compliment_ them beautifully which in your opinion is better. You’re genuinely touched. The black lace around the neck and back are slightly more daring than you’d have gone for if you’d chosen it yourself but you expect that’s a challenge from him to you. He loves anything that will throw a person out of their comfort zone. Typical Strider…

Catching yourself getting lost in a train of compromising thought, you bring yourself back to reality and deal with the remainders of your package. Carefully you pluck out the tissue paper and smooth it out, folding it up neatly with the thought that of _course_ you will find a use for it again someday. It’s only when you go to pick up the empty box that you notice the small cream card at the bottom, so subtle that you’d assume it were an afterthought if it were from anyone other than Dave.

With slightly shaking fingers you pull it out and turn it over.

 

Your heart begins to pound double-time.

You’re not all that bothered that it’s a date and time, nor that it’s a VIP pass. It barely crosses your mind that you’ve kind of always wanted to go to a movie premiere and you don’t even mind that the entire invite is written in comic sans, lurid shades of cyan and fuchsia mandatory in his printing as per usual.

What you care about is that at the bottom, in red permanent marker, is his familiarly messy scrawl looking suspiciously like it was smudged in haste.

‘ _idk, I just miss you I guess.’_

The whole thing is so _unmistakeably_ him that you have to suppress a sob. Of relief, that is.

You brush your fingers against his handwriting and begin to realise a curious thing. Dave Strider doesn’t mind that you’re slightly unhinged. He doesn’t appear to want to fix you in any way and he doesn’t prod you incessantly when you make it clear that there are things you don’t want to talk about. Dave Strider is a middle-aged _dork_ but he’s about as real as they come and maybe it’s just the fumes from the splash of tip-ex on the corner of the card where he’s tried to cover up a tiny ‘x’ after his message but part of you is starting to think that maybe he’s about as sincere as they come.

Dave Strider doesn’t mind that you tried to kiss him and crossed a boundary. Dave Strider doesn’t care that you rebuffed him when he tried to talk it over. Dave Strider is probably more embarrassed about this whole thing than you are, and yet here he is in the only way he knows how when you’ve made it clear you don’t want to be near him right now to say that when you’re ready, he’d like to just move on with whatever it was the two of you were doing.

In hindsight, perhaps you’ve been a little silly and dramatic about the whole situation: you’re not two kids at the after-prom party, you’re two adults with a job to do.

If Dave can get over one drunken mishap then you sure as hell can too, and in that small investment of faith in his judgement you slowly take your first baby-steps back into the territory of trusting someone other than yourself in a very long time.  

It feels good.

Better than you gave it credit for. Almost worth the anguish you’re already anticipating in the back of your mind. Not quite enough to discount the thoughts, but good enough to take a gamble.

You suppose for once you’ll need to cross your fingers and hope for a little _good luck_.

* * *

 

When you dress yourself, you are gentle with your skin in a way you would never allow another to be: To be gentle with you is a privilege that is yours alone and you savour it entirely, hands ghosting over your calves as you try first to pull the gown up over your hips and, in failing, sliding it back off and pulling it down over your head instead. Unsatisfied at first by the way it hangs in messy falls (only just too long for your figure) you add the shoes and do a few turns in the mirror, watching yourself cautiously.

You have never regarded yourself as an ugly person, there are few physical things in this world that you consider to be truly _ugly,_ but by the same token you are only human: to view yourself as ‘not ugly’ is not the same as viewing yourself as desirable and you have days where it affects you more than it probably should.

Now though, standing tall as the fabric cascades and fans in a slight train around your ankles, you take in the sculpt of your shoulder-blades beneath the lace and _wonder_ for a moment if it is possible that you look not merely adequate but _lovely_.

You want to say that it compliments you but you stop and re-evaluate the thought, self-depreciation seeming unfitting under such circumstances: rather, _you_ compliment it.  Without being vain, you doubt anyone else could pull it off quite so well. It’s as if the dress was _made_ for you.

You pause to suppress the light blush that flutters to your cheeks at the idea that he thought so too. You try not to think about him standing there imagining you in it. You fail and give in, smiling dumbly at your own reflection. Just this once, it probably wouldn’t hurt to be frivolous - in fact, to _hell_ with self-preservation: you learnt to laugh at yourself a long time ago. You move closer to the glass and pull a face, laughing instinctively at the contrast between the dignified gown and your gross expression. You flick your hair a little too indulgently and end up having to pat it down hastily as you remember that you actually have somewhere to be tonight.

The last time you remember dressing yourself up was probably the ball your college threw when you graduated. Since then your only real necessities for scrubbing up have been for the purpose of public appearances and God _forbid_ you would be allowed to do it yourself. The novelty of being made over is one that wears off quickly and if you’re honest, it feels satisfying to be doing your own makeup again. You know the ways you like your hair, your eyes. It’s good to not be made to feel inadequate, always in need of another powdering and besides, you know better than they do that sometimes less is more when it comes to a woman’s face. Thankful, really, considering you couldn’t have enlisted their help even if you wanted it: the only one to know your plans for this evening would be your driver, George, a 61-year-old gentleman with grey hair whose traditional values never failed to make you smile in the polite conversation he offered. If not for your public image you wonder if perhaps you’d have eventually chosen an older man as a partner but then again there was always a strange twinge of regret that you couldn’t quite put your finger on after being around them. Any man old enough to be, say, an uncle, left you giggling but nauseous: something between paranoia and guilt but ultimately unpleasant. Still, those gory thoughts aside, George’s main benefit aside from being a gorgeous conversationalist was that he had far better things to do than gossip. He’d make the journey from your hotel to the red carpet (because that was, of course, your destination for tonight) as swift and painless as possible which is just what you need, the opposite of what you need being the object of pursuit for every camera in town as the media attempts, despite your current apparent ‘break’, to figure out just exactly what is going down between you and Strider.

(You wish them the best of luck. You’ve been trying to figure out the same and failing miserably. Best not to think about that.

‘ _Strider.’_ You repeat mentally, reaching behind your neck to fasten the last button on your back. ‘ _Strider, not Dave - not first names: we’re allies, not friends.”_

Perhaps if you repeat it enough times you can convince yourself that you want it to be true. The butterflies in your stomach, however, are currently being non-cooperative with this game plan.)

You finish dressing yourself with time to spare – unsurprising, really, given that there really was very little to do in the first place save for the bath. Too proud to simply sit and preen yourself in the extra time, you make yourself useful by re-arranging your suitcase.

 

When George rings up you’re on your knees with your face in one of Dave’s shirts that accidentally made it into your case underneath your pyjamas, fingers curled tightly into the folds of the fabric as if clinging hard enough to a physical remainder of what you almost had would do any good to change the situation.

The bell wakes you from your thoughts and you blink around yourself. With a deep breath you put it down and take a deep breath, straightening your dress and taking brave steps towards the door.

Dave Strider is an ally, not a friend, not a lover, and there are bigger things happening than the two of you right now so you will do what you are best at:

You will summon your steel courage and be the wonderfully strong woman you know you _are_ despite the girl you _feel like_ being inside. You will make sure that if any iteration of yourself from the past were to be watching, they would be _proud,_ because your name is Rose Lalonde and you’ve handled far scarier things than emotions without so much as the bat of an eyelid _._

Your name is Rose Lalonde, and you are resilient against all odds. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> HELLO FRIENDS THIS TOOK A LONG TIME TO WRITE AND A LONGER TIME WHILE I PUT OFF PROOFREADING IT  
> y'all can thank puppy-eater for indirectly reminding me  
> This was going to be longer but I've split the chapter in half there will be two slightly smaller updates faster rather than one GARGANTUAN chapter scheduled for posting after a really long time, I figured that worked better.   
> it's also a load of barf, but that's what happens when I write Rose, I'm sorry my Rose-perception is horrible I really am and I'm working on it. Less plot than perspective but that's pretty much this entire fic. We got what they did in canon as an account from Dirk, I'm just trying to write how they felt about all that so I'm not totally sorry but yeah, there will be more of an actual plotline and less emotional drama after this chapter (we hope). At present I'm bogged down with assignments but yes, hopefully around christmas time I can get another one of these whacked out. 
> 
> In the mean time thank you for the kudos and the bookmarks and the comments!!! The reinforcement that I'm not making a total hashjob in a pairing tag already full of incredible works is appreciated so much and I'm really grateful for all the kindness.


	6. Call it an intermission

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> This… isn’t how I wanted to update this but oh well. I figured an update was way overdue and this chapter would have ended up being a VERY long chapter if I’d done it the way I’d originally planned so have a kind of intermission type thing (I don’t even know okay I have no idea what I’m doing). On the plus side that means half of the next chapter is already done? I will still probably update like a huge doof though? Some things never change.   
> I should explain now I think that there will be less of the political dystopia vibe to this fic, the feeling being that if you want to read about that then you already have a lot of Alphas versus the government to choose from – there’s no point in as heavy a focus on it in this and frankly I couldn’t do it justice compared to what others have done. I’m hoping that this will be more on the focus of the emotional side of it but who even knows k I’m gonna SHUDDAP now, you get the picture – I’m trying to deviate from the alternative narration to canon route and make more of a slice of life of it.  
> And also, given the content, this chapter will switch viewpoints. Infer from that what you will about the content of this chapter and what will be coming in the next.

You take the flashbulbs with a pokerface and ignore the way each one hits you like a bullet to the chest. They thunder in your ears and for a moment you’re right back to your first one of these, overwhelmed and slightly nauseous and more than a little bit desperate to get inside and get wasted so you had some kind of excuse to lose yourself in the moment. That, though, was down to nerves and in hindsight you really had nothing to worry about. This time it’s slightly different. Neglecting to look over your shoulder for what would make a sixth hopeful glance towards where the woman who makes you feel like removing your eyes with melon baller in all the right ways should be, you try to focus on the vast sea of microphones being thrust at you from behind strong barriers. Your instructions had been strict: no interviewers on the carpet. ‘Mr Strider will take questions next week when you fuckers have actually seen the goddamn movie, so there is no point in him answering any beforehand.’, or, translated: ‘For fucks sake, just make something up because if she doesn’t show then I’m going to lose my shit in front of all those people the moment I try to open my stupid mouth.’

How very, painfully, true.

You open your mouth to smile and your lower lip quivers, raise a hand to offer and austere greeting to your fans and it only gets halfway before you lower it, unsure of how friendly you’re allowed to be. Maybe you spent too much time being the public Dave Strider. Maybe you’re just tired. Rose would know the difference, and if she didn’t then she would at least be able to pat your arm in reassurance whilst she mutters that you’re a spineless pussy in a volume that only you can hear from behind her faux, taut smile.

It’s not romance but that is okay. If life teaches us anything, you think, it’s how to settle for less. It’s not romance but _God_ you wish she was here as another light goes off in your face and you grimace out a gritty smile to the photographers, pacing a strong step forward as your bones shake in the cavity of the steel body you have built in the absence of support of others.

_Mr Strider!_

_(She probably didn’t find the card.)_

_Over here!_

_(Or she was busy.)_

_How do you feel about-_

_(Or she hates me forever.)_

_Mr Strider?_

_(Smile for the camera, go on. Why don’t you pout like a little bitch, pull a good old-fashioned whore routine, sell yourself to the media. Do something ironic and go home alone in the dark to laugh at yourself later.)_

 

It’s fine as your fists shake. _You don’t mind!_ It’s totally all right for her not to be here. You don’t need her to be here, it was just an afterthought. Still, settling for less was so much easier when you had nothing to compare less to.

Lost in thought, you square your jaw and turn your face to the cameras just in time to be simultaneously blinded and deafened by a sudden rush of lights and shouts as every reporter there races to catch their part of the biggest petty media excitement of the year.

And there she is, fashionably late and casting a formidable black shadow on the red carpet as she glides her way over to you, waving shrewdly at cameras with her little black lips pursed tightly into a smile that said she wasn’t telling any of them jack shit. There’s a pang in your chest as the phrase ‘ _That’s my girl’_ flits across your brain but adrenaline calms it and you wait quietly, expression deadpan as ever, for her to reach you.

* * *

 

Your name is Rose Lalonde and you are going to kill him for these shoes. Yes, they are beautiful. No, they are not appropriate for being underneath a floor-length gown either aesthetically or practically. For one, their beauty was hidden. For two, the spike of the heel was making walking very difficult given that you are terrified that at any moment you are going to hear it rip through the bottom of the skirt. To make matters worse, you can see the journalism now. They will say you waltzed down like a spectre, that you positively glided; the picture of elegance.  Whilst flattery was never to be declined in a line of work that left you open to media scrutiny at all times, your ego sighs. It’s difficult to be taken seriously when you are a pretty woman in what is still very much a man’s world. It’s harder still when you’re portrayed as some kind of flimsy nymph in Louboutins. What you wouldn’t give for someone to write that you _strode_ down this aisle…

Did you just call it an _aisle_?

You meant carpet. Carpet is what you meant.

With subtly narrowed eyes, you consider your mental Freudian slip. You are currently in a long dress, walking slowly down a narrow straight to a man who has been waiting for you. He has not seen you in the dress and the shuddered sigh he gives when he catches your eye rings of a man who was previously terrified you wouldn’t show, that you would leave him there. Perhaps it wasn’t so ridiculous to consider it an aisle. In some morbid way, the whole situation does resemble a wedding of sorts. If it is a wedding, you can’t help but feel slighted by the caricature of matrimony before you. Where there should be family there are reporters, where there should be an altar there is Dave’s shitty movie, and to top it all off you’re wearing a colour more closely associated with death than a sacred bond between two people.

A shiver goes down your spine at your observation’s capacity for foreshadowing. You are being ridiculous. It’s just a premier. Nothing more, nothing less. You will not ruin Dave’s day by blanking out and having a bizarre psychotic episode, especially in the view of one hundred or so cameras.

And so you, his lady in black, continue your slow walk towards him.

And he smiles back at you, blissfully unaware.

* * *

 

You try to be Dave Strider. Honestly, you really try, but Dave Strider is kind of preoccupied. The toe of her shoe pokes out from under her dress for a moment, white skin making a contrast against both the black and the red of the carpet. Her white stark against your red in a way that makes it difficult to concentrate for reasons you can’t put your finger on. You are _trying_ to be Dave Strider, but you’re so distracted by how pretty she looks against the red, how much she seems to _belong_ to it, that it’s making it hard for you right now so you should probably just go back to being Rose before you embarrass yourself.

* * *

 

Your hand fits in the crook of his arm and the heels make you feel almost his height. The media will note the way he tilts his head down to look at you. They’ll neglect your decision not to reciprocate his gaze but he doesn’t, muttering something about timing under his breath as he turns you towards the entrance. You mutter something back about a queen never being late. At that he stops and looks back down to you and you can’t deny his eyes this time, searching them through the dark glass. There is morbid curiosity in you that wants to know how badly you have hurt him with your absence but an admirable strength in him that won’t let you see it. Chivalry is appreciated but you can’t help but feel cheated by the way he’s protecting you from whatever is raging in his head right now.

“And you’re a queen, are you?” He mumbles, the corner of his mouth twitching and erasing the worry that in your absence he might have put back up all his shields. A flash of white from his mouth reveals the beginnings of a grin. “What does that make me? Your prize fuckin’ idiot?”

It is with a slight tinge of regret that you note that if he’s smiling he is still as foolishly loyal to you as ever. You consider his question carefully, weaving phrases mentally and cherrypicking words to no avail. Sometimes less is more.

“My Knight.” You answer quietly, resting your head in against his shoulder and rendering him silent against the sound of reporters trying desperately to catch the moment.

* * *

 

You decline answering press questions before the screening and watch helplessly as she attempts to calm her nerves by downing both yours and her own glass of cheap champagne in the space of five minutes. Her subtlety perhaps saves her from them but only half an hour back with her you’re beginning to remember what hard work it is to care about a woman with an iron will and the stubbornness of a mule. Excusing yourself from some fan or something (You’re not paying attention, but what’s new?) you sidle your way over to her and let hands rest on her hips before you’re even aware of what you’re doing. She grumbles and swallows your drink, glaring at you accusingly as you sigh. “Look, I had to answer that guy. You think I wanted to answer that guy?”

“You _left_ me surrounded by _morons._ Is there any more of this? Times like this make me glad I’m a novelist and not a screenwriter, honestly these people…”

The scent of red wine is heavy on her breath and it occurs to you that perhaps she’s had more than just the two drinks. Is she nervous? Hard to say. You notice that she hasn’t removed your hands yet. That’s new.

“Think you’ve had enough, girl. Movie hasn’t even started yet.” She grumbles and swivels to face you, inclining her chin to challenge you.

“Don’t tell me what to do, Dave Strider.” She hisses and you feel your stomach jolt.

You’re suddenly aware that the room has become very quiet and turn your head to see the entire room staring at what appears to be you leaning over one quite obviously tipsy Rose Lalonde whose mouth is perfectly aligned to kiss yours. You clear your throat and jump back, adjusting your tie. Someone suggests you go through to the seating. You declare this to be a marvellous idea. Rose Lalonde subtly cops your ass as you follow the crowd. It’s going to be a long night.

* * *

 

He suggests you sit at the back. You don’t know why. Honestly there isn’t much you’re sure of right now and doing shots at the pre-mingle or whatever you were just subjected to in the lobby probably wasn’t the best remedy for it. Your body is warm and your head is pleasantly fuzzy but more importantly you now have an ‘excuse’ for behaving awfully. It wasn’t your intention before you arrived to get drunk and make Dave Strider uncomfortable, quite the opposite; you’d planned to be civil, to be the gentlewoman you should have been, but who were you to deny the allure of getting away with murder?

He catches your wrist as your fingers glide over his crotch and gives you a warning look and a hiss that sounds a little like your name. Neither of you are watching the movie but thankfully the crowd is entranced enough not to notice the fidgeting and shuffling the two of you are causing in the boxed seats above as he repeatedly slaps away your wandering hands and mutters run-on sentences that probably make sense to no one. You catch phrases like ‘What the hell is wrong with you?’ and ‘Jesus Christ are we doing this again, really?’ but those are just words, just sounds until finally and firmly he takes both your hands in his and pulls you down to sit in his lap. You’re sober enough to restrain a cry of defiance but drunk enough to consider squirming against him - you’d forgotten how strong he could be when a situation necessitated it but were quickly remembering. Tangling a hand in the hair at the back of your head he pulls your face down to rest against his shoulder and rests his other on your thigh, stroking you as if you were a frightened animal or an unquiet child.

“S’just us. Calm down.”

You feel your heartbeat even out, unaware it had even been hammering previously, and allow yourself to sink into the comfort of a person who seemed to know you better than you knew yourself sometimes.

“I missed you.” You whisper, slurring your words and cringing at the sound.

“Then stop leaving.”

A whimper escapes your throat and your fingers tighten around the lapel of his jacket, your curled position to his chest just another sobering reminder of how helpless you were against him when he had his game on. “I mean it.” He mumbles. “We don’t have to be anything you don’t want, I’m happy to just be around you-“

“I’m dangerous.” You croak, cutting him off. His hands stop moving for half a second and you feel his breath catch for a moment.

“You think you’ll be the death of me?” He murmurs eventually. “I can believe that. But if not you it would be an assassin or a reckless driving incident. Baby every time you step out of the house there’s a risk you’ll be the next random target of gun crime, every time you swallow a mouthful there’s a risk you’ll choke. At least if I went by Rose Lalonde I’d have something pretty to look at as a last memory.”

 At that you can’t hold it in. Poor, simple Dave Strider and his limited knowledge of the world: to your drunken little head it’s the most pitiful thing you think you’ve ever known and you sigh so hard that it rattles in your chest and reverberates its way into his. You don’t want to think about serious things, you want to play. You want to forget. Hopping off his lap suddenly, you grab his hand and half drag him out into the corridor.

* * *

 

“You really don’t… You just don’t understand.”

Rose Lalonde has you pinned to the wall. If an attendant comes out right now your private life is officially fucked. You care less than you should.

“Because it’s not as simple as not leaving… Dave.”

“What?”

“Dave!”

“Yes, I’m listening, what?” Jesus fucking Christ do you hate conversing with drunken people when you’re sober. It’s probably the only thing that rivals your hatred for speaking to preteen girls in tube tops and sparkly lipgloss. She trails her hand down your chest and before you have time to figure out what she’s doing her expert fingers are loosening your tie.

“It’s dangerous…” She continues, inviting herself to the buttons on your shirt and grumbling something under her breath at the discovery that you didn’t actually bother to do the top one up.

(You are a man who likes good suits and respects formalwear highly but even you don’t have time for that. Top button more like let’s see how uncomfortable we can make this shirt.)

“Rose,” You mumble, intending your tone to be more warning than it actually is. You’re about as intimidating as daisy chain but worryingly not quite as limp right now. That’s a problem you’re trying to ignore. You don’t know why you’re letting her do this, undoing your buttons one by one until your shirt is open enough for her to drag her palms down your skin and oh _God_ that’s a thing you could get used to if this situation wasn’t so wrong, if you were anywhere other than a dingy corridor at a high-class movie theatre potentially minutes away from media exposure of the awful kind for both of you. “Rose, Rosie-“

“Don’t call me that…”

“I don’t care – hey,” You swat her hands away as they ghost dangerously close to your belt buckle. “Christ Lalonde, you’re behaving like a tipsy adolescent on prom night and I’m the confused teenage boy who got luckier than he bargained for and – _hey,_ no I’m serious you stop that right now.” She titters as you catch both of her hands in one of yours and mock-slap them. “Down, girl.”

With a waggle of her eyebrows she seems to take that instruction a little too literally and you scramble to grab her shoulders and pull her back up to her feet before she can make a move on your zipper. She whines and slumps against your chest, half knocking the wind out of you but when it becomes clear she’s given in you relax and let your hand resume its favourite position in her hair.

“Party pooper.” She grumbles. You smile.

“Correct term is gentleman. You’ll be hella pissed about this tomorrow morning as it is. Don’t need you being more embarrassed than necessary. Don’t want you going on another bender and leaving me all by myself again.”

“Why do you even care?”

“Because you’re my best friend, Rose Lalonde.” It’s half true. She’s so much more but she’s also drunk and prone to flipping out over emotional crap. This little woman, this wonderfully shitfaced little broad against your chest. If distance made the heart grow fonder then her hiatus from you had been a veritable ocean. “And friends don’t let friends undress them and suck them off in public. Especially when that’s pretty much definitely not a thing they would do sober.”

“We’re supposed to save the world…” She mumbles, curling her fingers against you. “Would be easier if you were less tolerable in practice… In theory you are the pinnacle of everything I find despicable in a man, outspoken and crude and antisocial at the best of times. A reckless hedonist who sleeps with whoever he likes and makes his money by being a poster-boy for sarcasm…”

You wince and you take it. You can take it, you can handle the truth. It’s strange to think that her pretty mouth could twist words in ways that make you ache like that where if they were black ink on a tabloid page you wouldn’t give a shit.

“In practice, though,” She continues, drawing you back to the real world. “In practice you are… full of pity. You are gentle and you are… quiet. And you are brilliant – the things you say and the jokes you make. The way you can make me feel so safe when in reality I’m millimetres away from the edge of something awful… I resent you for it, but also I think I-“

You press a finger to her lips, looking down at her worried eyes. “You’re not so awful yourself for a snarky reclusive writer, but I’m going to have to stop you there before you push me over and into douchebag territory in terms of doing something we’ll both regret tomorrow.” She reaches up to move your hand away and she gives you a smile that’s anything but happy.

“You can handle the physical side but you’re awful at feelings. I’ve noticed that about you. You’re a mess when things start to mean something.”

“Yeah,” You croak. “Yeah, maybe I am. We all have our faults, Lalonde. Mine is that I’m a robot most of the time-“

This time it’s her finger on your lips, blonde hair swaying around her face as she shakes her head too vigorously. You’re glad of that; as her speech pattern is resuming you were in need of a reminder that she was still out of it to keep you in check.

“No…” She breathes. “Yours is that you like to _think_ you’re a robot most of the time.”

To that you have no answer other than to indulge her by pulling her closer when she leans up against your body and wraps her arms around your neck. “If I promise not to run away… and you promise not to overthink this…”

“Rose Lalonde, you will be the death of me.”

She smiles. “I really hope not.”

She leans up and you lean down and your lips find each other’s a lot smoother than they did the first time you tried this. You don’t mind that it’s quick and tongueless because there’s a lot to be said for it being her.

When she breaks it she doesn’t look like she’s going to cry or yell or hit you which you’ll take as a good sign.

“How ironic is it for a guy to leave his own premiere halfway through?” You ask. She smirks.

“Strider, just take me home.”

* * *

 

Dave is silent in the taxi. You watch the lights from outside reflect on his glasses and try to guess what’s going on behind them with little success, allow yourself to feel a little less guilty for being terrible this evening. In the back of your mind you’re all too aware that the worst is yet to come; in retrospect one night of behaving like teenagers wasn’t an abominable crime. That’s what he’d said, anyway. Poor Dave Strider, no idea what he was getting himself tangled up in.

You slide your hand on top of his and he laces your fingers together.

“You’re exhausting to know.” He mumbles without looking at you. “Just FYI. Just thought you should know.”

“I know.” You smile and squeeze his hand. “Exciting, though.”

He rolls his shoulders and slumps back into his seat with a shrug, permanent adolescent trapped in the body of a grown man.

“Yeah.” He admits. “I guess.”


	7. Small-knife syndrome

It’s surprising how quickly you can slip back into old routines, the you being plural despite your (singular) suspicions that he may have never fully adjusted to not having had you around in the first place. Normalcy (or at least whatever twisted caricature of it the two of you can muster between you) resumes with only a hint of the former familiarity missing – yes, missing but not lost. At times you wish it lost if in all honesty: you curl up on his chest in your evening dress where before you would have been in your underwear and don’t argue when he says it’s bedtime. You don’t laugh as much as you used to and the once lost virtue of privacy makes a less welcome return than you’d previously anticipated it would. In the same way his half-smiles become flatlines on his lips and he doesn’t whine like a child when you leave (which you do, frequently), merely following you to the door and watching silently as your car pulls away.

The breaks between your meetings become longer and you find the majority of your correspondence through typed syntax on a screen rather than slurred words while you fall over each other in the early hours of the morning. You don’t allow yourself to gage how you feel about this properly, perhaps a weakness on your part but at the same time a much needed coping strategy.

After all, you remind yourself( too often), you need Dave Strider for more than personal reasons: you can’t have him getting sick of you too quickly.

On the (rare) evenings where your nights spent alone aren’t clouded pleasantly by the contents of whatever bottle is closest, your dreams are invaded by whispers from places that don’t exist and names you can never quite remember when you wake up. In your peripheral vision there is often darkness winding in incomprehensible shapes and there are shadows in the corners of your home that won’t seem to fade regardless how many candles you light. You sleep with the lamps on and wake up more exhausted than you fell asleep, hair a mess and mascara streaking down your face from where you were too tired to remove it the night before. You’re thankful your dreams don’t seem to care for the confines of his apartment – indeed, in his home (or his arms) you’re fine.

(Whatever.)

Love is a cliché you’ve never really bought but privately you’re beginning to see what it means to feel that another person can make you feel _whole_.

(He is your armour and without him you’re naked and defenceless.)

(It’s pathetic. You’re pathetic.)

(Perhaps you only feel that way because it seems you have no control over it.)

As much as you’d love to believe you were crazy, there is truth to your dream-illusions that seems to shift and manifest itself in strange ways in your reality. Dave is the most prominent proof of this; you dreamt of him long before you began fabricating elaborate ways of making first contact. There’s a surge of pride in you at every thought of him as if by predicting your entry into his life you’d created his very being in your subconscious. It’s ridiculous and childish but in that way you can justify the feeling that he is very much yours.

Still, when he gets too close you back away.

Fairly quickly he seems to get the message and eventually he stops trying to persuade you otherwise.

A part of you is grateful for the respect he gives your need for space but another part hates that it seems like he doesn’t want to fight you anymore.

* * *

 

Birthday’s come and go. Both too stubborn to ask outright, you resort to finding the dates on each other’s Wikipedia pages, a move it seems he anticipated. To your horror you end up missing his birthday by a month:  he’d edited the data on his own page just to irk you. Your anger was only intensified by the knowledge that you’d already got his present by December the 3rd anyway. Reluctantly, you’d let him win that round.

On your birthday he presents you with a small box and you panic for a moment before realising that it was slightly too big to contain a ring. He’d acted like he didn’t know for the whole day and you’d presumed it pure co-incidence that he’d invited you over for the night. Lounging against his shoulder by the light of news reports that were most likely inaccurate and/or biased, he’d pressed the small box to your fingertips and nudged it into your palm for good measure when you’d acted oblivious to it.

Unwrapping it and peeling back the layers of tissue you were surprised to find not a piece of elaborate jewellery but a small metal rectangle, split down the middle and apparently encrusted with some kind of purple stone. “Purple Jasper,” He mutters quietly as your fingers brush their polished surfaces. “Amethysts were too clichéd.” He sits tense while you lift it out of the box and doesn’t respond when you raise an eyebrow at him. Naturally, your retaliation is to give it a little flick of your wrist.

Instantly his hand shoots to your arm, holding the object in your hand high above your face. “Balisong…” You murmur, using your free hand to brush the hair from the front of his glasses. “I know. Just testing you. Thank you.” He relaxes, lets you go, and sinks back into the couch.

“Welcome.” He grunts. “Always saying how protection and defence etc.  is the most important thing, right? Thought it would come in handy. Know how you like small knives.”

You smile and just about resist pecking him on the cheek. For his birthday you get him a cookery book and commission a one-off blade to add to his collection.

“Know how you like big knives.” You mutter with a smile into his chest as he hugs you in thanks.

* * *

 

He teaches you to swordfight on the roof and doesn’t complain when you still won’t tell him why he needs to. He fights in a way more calculated than you do; he’s faster with his movements for one and definitely more precise. It’s unsurprising given that he’s been doing it a lot longer than you have but you could never resist a good challenge; every blow he blocks is just one more that you resolve to strike against him next time. You find yourself laughing privately at how his weapon of choice is one that he is able to keep at arm’s length, as if even in combat he struggles to keep things close to his heart. He likes to block, to defend. He likes to protect and deflect blows rather than make risky strikes. You on the other hand are more erratic, jabbing and spiking wherever possible and not even bothering to try and cover for yourself. He suggests the two of you try fencing which is a horrible mistake; the fight goes on for hours because he’s too hesitant to hit you but too fast with his defence to let _you_ hit him. You eventually decide close combat is more your forte and he starts showing you the wonderful world of daggers. The method is one you vastly prefer, but the handles are too large to be comfortable in your petite hands and too heavy to allow you to flick your wrists as freely as you’d like. They feel like they’re weighing you down and that in itself is almost as frustrating as the fact that you _still_  can’t seem to hit him.

It’s his eventual idea, as he sits glaring daggers at your cat one afternoon he spends at your house watching you knit, to try and find something similar to needles. You can’t believe you didn’t think of it sooner; you’ve been using them for most of your life, they feel natural in your hands.

The first time you fight him with your newly forged weapons it ends with him on the ground pushing you back with his foot, both of you panting. His cheeks flush nicely when he’s out of breath, you think, and you have to stifle the thought that perhaps you’d like to be on top of him more often. It’s a mutual decision that weapon-needles are the best idea the two of you have had in a long time.

* * *

 

Dave Strider doesn’t push you when you tell him to leave. He doesn’t chase you when you go. If you tell him not to call, he obeys.

He’s a good puppet. It’s something about him that simultaneously earns your respect and terrifies you.  

Occasionally you catch glances in his eyes that suggest he’s searching for something, catch mumbles in his sleep that sound like your name. You wonder if he misses the way things were when you first met. You wonder if you do too.

It’s difficult figuring out how you are when you’ve gotten so used to people telling you how to feel. As more time progresses and he proves himself further to be a trustworthy partner, you open up to him. Your days off are spent lying fully clothed in his bed beside him speaking softly about the things you see when you close your eyes. Even if he’s not fully convincing when he says he believes you he makes no attempts to mock you, nodding his head from time to time and asking questions where things things make less sense than usual. You tell him you’ve seen a revolution, tell him you’ve seen horrible things.

(You don’t tell him about the babies, though. You’re not quite ready for _that_ discussion yet.)

His face twists as if it hurts him to hear it. You thread your fingers between his and squeeze his hand. He never tells you to stop talking when you’re being serious and yet again you feel a pang of longing for the times he’d tell you to shut up as you rambled on about something ridiculous.

You begin to miss him when he’s not around, a foreign feeling that you’re not entirely comfortable with. He indulges you by picking up by the second ring without fail.

Time passes around you and so wrapped up in your own world, it’s only when he mentions the date to you that you remember that in between your private lives he’s been busy with another movie and he’d like you to come to that premiere too.

You promise to behave yourself and this time you really mean it.

* * *

 

Unrehearsed public appearances make you uncomfortable to say the least. At least _your_ fans have some sense of decorum: the Dave Strider appreciation society is like a pack of wolves and you may as well have clad yourself from head to toe in meat for the way the way they stare at you on his arm. They watch you with malicious intent – perhaps you’re paranoid but you can’t help but feel they’re just waiting for you to trip. It’s deeply unsettling being the object of attention for a crowd that would sooner see you fall than fly and it’s something he seems to be aware of, animal in his way of sensing when something is off with you. What you assume are his best efforts to calm your nerves involve putting his hand around your waist as you walk by his side. It only serves to aggravate the crowds of teenage girls even more and for a fleeting moment you consider him utterly hopeless until you glance up at his face to see him smirking. He knows exactly what he’s doing, the smug bastard. At least he didn’t dress you this time. Well, not the dress at least. You let him pick the shoes. Just to make him feel better, of course.

True to your word, not a drop of alcohol passes your lips and it only serves to make his ‘masterpiece’ all the more painful to watch. Drunk and preoccupied during your last cinematic experience courtesy of him, until now you’d felt somewhat guilty for not giving his work your full attention last time given the amount of praise he’d had for your writing. Apparently your guilt was in vain: the movie is awful, and that’s being kind. One look at his straight face tells you that he knows it’s awful too, also that he’s incredibly proud of it: it’s very obviously _supposed_ to be awful and to someone like you who strives for perfection it makes his success all the more infuriating. The audience finds it hilarious, laughing at the ‘irony’ of it all like idiots which is ironic in itself given that they probably don’t even understand half of it. Occasionally by the glow of the screen you notice the corner of his mouth twitch in a curious way and begin to slowly notice that they coincide with the subtle subtexts to certain parts of the film. The fast pace and jerky graphics make his riddles harder to decipher on screen than in his comics but they’re still there, you give him a little credit for that.

You’re true to your word on the ground of your behaviour but though you don’t drink, he does and he does so with frightful abandon. You’ve only ever seen Dave tipsy before and even then you were never sober when it happened. It’s slightly frightening to see his movements so loose and his tongue so unpractised in the way it weaves his speech. Clever remarks sound like the mumblings of a madman when slurred in a drawl you rarely get to hear when he’s in his right mind.

It seems it is customary to have some kind of lobby after-party, a fact you’d know if you’d hung around for long enough last time, and you watch helplessly as he downs seemingly endless shots of something that makes him wince subtly behind his glasses. It physically hurts a part of you to see him becoming a different person and your gut twists as he makes eyes at women you don’t know and pecks them affectionately on their cheeks. You watch with agonised jealously ( _jealously_ of all things) as he slides his hands over their shoulders, their waists, and they in turn laugh into his ear and push their chests to his.

(Pretty young things, not like you.)

(Girls that don’t lock themselves in bathrooms to cry or drown their realities in wine. Girls that wake up yawning not screaming.)

(Dave Strider observes the women in his pool of social connections and notices they’re all raising their hands out of the water to him. The difference between you and them is that they’re waving and you’re drowning.)

From time to time he looks in your direction, makes eye contact for a second and then looks away in a way that makes you realise that he _wants_ you to watch, he wants you to see everything he’s doing and you can’t for the life of you understand why. Usually he’s aggravating with the way he smothers you and clings incessantly like a giant limpet to a rock in a storm: it makes no sense for this to be intended as cruelty (though that’s how you feel it). His actions don’t hurt as much as his action of drinking itself. You don’t understand why he feels the need to drink to an extent that means he’s no longer himself, not with you around. That’s what makes your connection special, you can be yourselves. Regardless of where you were or how many cameras surrounded you, what made your bond with Dave Strider special was that it was genuine and it was (for the most part) honest.

When watching him fall over himself becomes too much to bear you make a private call to your driver. You can’t remember whose stupid idea it was to arrange things this way but you’re staying together tonight at a nearby hotel and you don’t think you could stand the irony of watching him fall down the stairs on his way up to his room. Surprisingly when you tap his shoulder  and tell him it’s time to go he doesn’t object at all, dropping his arm off the girl it was on as if she were on fire.

You wait for him to slide his hand into yours as you leave the venue. He doesn’t.

The car back is silent and his ascent to your room equally as wordless aside from a couple of muttered swear words as he stumbles over his own feet. You stare at his back as he climbs the stairs with little difficulty and roll your eyes when he has trouble with the keycard . Upon closer inspection it seems he’s trying to unlock your door with his Starbucks loyalty card, an endeavour you allow him to continue this for 20 minutes as punishment for being a horrible date before taking the correct card out of his wallet and shoving him swiftly inside.

The door clicks shut behind you and neither of you can be bothered to turn on the lights. He wastes no time in slumping face first into the mattress of the double bed and you sit down on the other side, watching him with an air of more disappointment than disgust, though it’s a fine line. Eventually (with a groan) he sits up and extends his arms to you.

You waste no time in slapping him, hard, across his stupid face.

“What the fuck was that for???”

“What the fuck was _that_?”

“What the what was what?”

“You know what, _Dave_.”

He grins stupidly, resting his head on your shoulder. “Mm… s’nice when you say my name.”

You roll your eyes and enquire as to what else you could possibly call him. He chuckles. You consider slapping him again.

“No, usually… _usually_ you call me Strider. S’nice when you use my name.”

Even when drunk he’s charming, you’ll give him that. His breath smells of alcohol but his shirt still smells like him. He mumbles into your dress and you try to shove him up to hear him but he’s too heavy. He takes the hint eventually and supports himself. “You mad at me?” You nod in response. He sighs and shakes his head. “D’you get it now, though? Like why the thing does the thing.”

You raise an eyebrow. He furrows his brow as he realises that his sentence made no fucking sense at all. “No… yeah let me try that again. The thing, the drinking thing. Like you get it now? You get why it’s horrible to see you getting all wasted all the time? You get how bad it hurts when you get all dressed up in your clock… cloak, your _cloak_ of drunk and start acting like… I dunno, like not you.”

A chill runs down your spine at his words and you reach out to cup his face in concern. You never thought about it that way and whilst you hate him for making you feel guilty you suppose he’s making a lot of sense. He tells you in a whisper not to frown and _please_ don’t hit him again. “Don’t even like being drunk…” He confesses. “Don’t like not being in control.” His hand reaches out to mirror yours and you brush your cheek into his palm.

“I’m sorry.” You croak.

“I love you.” He mumbles.

You consider your jealousy, the ways you’ve tried to shield him and the ways he in return has quietly attempted to show you the error of your actions and come to two conclusions though you speak only one of them:

“You’re drunk.” You whisper, leaning forwards. “You precious, precious imbecile you are so _very_ drunk.”

He lets you push him down, doesn’t argue when you pull off his glasses or press your mouth to his neck. Fingers, yours or his (you can’t really tell) work at the buttons of his shirt and you let him sit up to pull it off along with his jacket. You crawl on top of him, letting him raise your arms and side your dress up over them. For a moment the reality of the situation strikes you. He brushes a hand over the bare skin of your waist and then down your thigh, stroking at the skin with a touch so delicate you’d think he was handling something made of spiderwebs: he’s seen you in your underwear before and you’re a grown woman, you’ve done this before so it makes no sense for you to feel self-conscious and yet you _do_. You’ve been this close to him before but only in terms of proximity. Something is different this time, something is _intimate_ in ways that it wasn’t before. You stop and almost instantly he does too. Even drunk he seems more than aware that you hate to be pushed and that’s when it strikes you that _you’re_ different - you’re the difference this time. Perhaps it was his well-meaning douchebag routine of showing you exactly how awful it felt for someone you cared about to try and hide themselves from you, perhaps the time was just right but either way somehow you didn’t feel the need to push him away this time or rather you weren’t so scared that he was going to push _you_ away.

“I’m not like the other girls you like to be with…” You start, urgent in your attempts to give him an escape option even so close to the point of no return.

“Don’t like them half as much as you,” He slurs.

“No, but I’m different - different in bad ways-“

“You’re Rose.” He interrupts. “That’s what matters. S’all that will ever matter, good or bad, young or old. Even drunk maybe sometimes. Still you. Still Rose.”

You lean down to his mouth and kiss him _properly_ , guiding his mouth with a hand to his jaw. Dave pulls away to check that you’re genuinely okay with this and you shut him up with your mouth again. He takes the hint and puts his hands back on your waist.

* * *

 

He wakes with a groan to a no doubt pounding head.  You watch smugly, propped up against the pillows and the headboard as he stirs and slaps around on the bedside table for his glasses. He won’t find them of course; they’re on _your_ table. Just like his clothes are on the floor of _your_ side of the bed. It takes a lot of concentration not to burst into hysterical laughter as he looks under the covers for them and notices that he’s lacking pants or boxers. It takes a painfully long time for him to look over his shoulder at you. You wiggle your fingers in a wave, smirking to high heaven.

At first he’s clearly confused, a look that suits him you think, though it could just be the way the light is filtering through the blinds and painting gold bands across the marks your fingernails made on his chest.  

“I’m still drunk.” Is his first conclusion. You shake your head. He gets out of bed, turns his back to you, and punches himself firmly in the chest. Peeping over his shoulder again, you give him another wave and let the sheets fall away from your chest. He takes a few deep breaths before fixing you with an accusing stare.  

“We didn’t-“

“We did.”

“Oh my God I’m sorry-“

“Why? I initiated it.”

“What about like…”  His mumble is inaudible and you put a hand to your ear. He sighs before he responds. “I mean where’s the _packet_ and stuff?”

You scoff. “Birth control, Strider: it’s a thing.” He covers his face with his hands. “You’re going to catch a cold if you insist on strutting around like that.” You add, helpfully. He moves his hands down so that he can glare at you and you note that his face is a delightful shade of pink. You shrug. “I thought this was something you did a lot. I don’t see why you’re behaving like I’ve just deflowered you.”

“Well yeah, I’m no angel of purity but-“

“But what?”

His face contorts and he cringes slightly, gesticulating wildly in a way that he probably knows makes no sense before sighing and covering his face again.

“But not with _you._ You and me, not like that. That’s never been a thing before.”

There is something endearing about watching the man you’ve decided you might sort of love a bit standing naked before you and having a minor emotional breakdown because he’s touched your breasts and various other parts of your more private anatomy. You beckon him back and despite his protests he doesn’t object, sliding in and sitting beside you and all the while blatantly refusing to meet your eyes. He looks like he’s about to say something but you wrap your arms around him and press your chest flush to him and he promptly shuts up, cheeks reddening in that delightfully satisfying way again.

“Dave Strider you are _pathetically_ childish.” You whisper. He nods.

“Did I at least last? Do I want to know?” He groans. You nod this time, biting your lip.

“Surprisingly.”

“Surprisingly? Excuse you-“

“Says the grown man blushing like a schoolgirl at the sight of boobs, yes, _surprisingly_ you lasted...”

“Shut up I was caught off guard. And anyway, it’s pretty hot in here.”

“It’s really not hot in here at all. If I wasn’t cold I wouldn’t be this close to you; you smell of alcohol and my sweat. It’s not a flattering aroma, you’ve definitely smelt better.”

“Yeah well you’re not exactly minty-fresh yourself. My mouth tastes of garlic and that definitely wasn’t in _my_ side-dish last night.”

“You _like_ garlic. Consider it a gift from me to you. Happy morning-after premiere: your film was awful and so was your behaviour despite the well-meaning intentions behind it. Now go and shower, you smell gross and I wasn’t joking.”

He shoves you. You shove him back. The squabble continues until both of you are back under the covers kicking each other like children. You elbow him in the ribs and he yelps, retaliating by pinching your nose. Eventually you end up back on top of him whilst you try to catch your breath. He tousles your hair and you tousle his right back which prompts a smirk. “So how about that shower?” he drawls, half-closing his eyes and throwing you a stupid half-smile that you’d just love to smack right off his face.

He lands with a crash and a squawk on the floor as you push him out of bed. “Don’t push your luck, Strider.”

“S’worked pretty well so far.” He laughs. It’s a sound you’ve missed.

* * *

 

You hide his underwear and one of his socks in the bottom of your suitcase while he’s in your en-suite and stifle your giggles when it’s your turn in the shower as you hear him tear the room apart to find his stuff. It’s too much even for you when you hear him yell that he can do interviews just fine without his boxers and you find yourself sat under the running water laughing hysterically as he does the same on the other side of the door in between pounding it with his fists and calling you names so stupid you wouldn’t have thought even his brain could have conjured them up.

“I’m going to set fire to your hot bikini woman I _swear_ , I’m gonna fry it in hot oil and stick it in a bun and I’m gonna make you _eat_ that shit right up, no lettuce.”

“I might just do the same to your manhood, I’d be careful who you buy knives for in the future.”

“God damn, Rose Lalonde you’re going to kill me one of these days I swear.”

Another chill runs down your spine. You pass it off as a change in water temperature and continue your laughter as you wash your hair, content for the moment to be nothing more than just Rose with just Dave.

“You wish.” You cackle as shampoo-infused water invades your left eye and he wheezes hysterically as you whine and try to flush it out. Karma, you suppose.

 

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> THIS TOOK LONG because I wrote the ending. I got kind of sad so I decided to channel that sad into our final chapter h ahha ha (but don't worry that won't be for a while yet) so sorry for being long.  
> IN OTHER NEWS, THANK YOU FOR 100+ KUDOS!!!!  
> I am so flattered you wouldn't believe. I feel like I should commission some milstone art or something but I'm pretty much broke so I guess that's an idea I'm going to have to put on hold but YEAH thank you so much!!! That 100 people have read this is overwhelming enough without 100 people actually enjoying it! It really means a lot.   
> Another shout out to puppy-eater on Tumblr (adding link to your ao3 in a mo I have to go eat dinner). An Alpha Rose with tendencies to go overboard on alcohol had always been a headcanon of mine vaguely but she really helped in developing that. She also writes a great Rose, better than mine so you should check her out.   
> t hank you guys so much just omg I don't know what to say


	8. 99 problems and this shitty barstool is like 78 of them at least

“Keeps me sane.” You grunt to an interviewer. “My friend. Everyone needs friends.”

“And she’s just your friend?” The microphone is almost intrusively close to your mouth and you raise an eyebrow as you push it slightly out of the way, grimacing a half smile.

“Yeah. She’s my _best_ friend.” Without removing his eyes from yours, he moves to the side to let you pass. They won’t publish it; they never do. It’s getting boring how often they try to prise some kind of information about Rose Lalonde out of you, especially first thing on a Monday morning.

The reception girls look up at you with shaky smiles as you pass them silently and you already know she’s been in. Half the building is terrified of her as a professional force and you can’t say you blame them. You’d probably offer lunchtime coffees and sympathetic back-pats if you weren’t still pissed about the reporters outside, instead all that comes out is a mutter to main security regarding installing electric fences outside. Your request is denied and you call them party poopers but it doesn’t make you feel any better.

You can tell she’s there before you open the door and you’re loosening your tie as she’s turning in your favourite chair.

“Strider-“

“Don’t care. You have all of 8.5 seconds to get that off and get your ass back in the chair.”

She raises an eyebrow at you. You don’t see it because you’re trying to unbutton your shirt but it’s instinct by now, you can practically smell her bitchface in the air and it’s not doing anything to improve your mood.

“Difficult morning?” She mumbles, shrugging her blouse off her shoulders effortlessly.

“Could say that.” You grunt back, locking the door.

* * *

 

She doesn’t let you say the L-word but you know it’s there on your side because it hurts like hell every time she smiles at someone else and you feel like a preteen every time she accidentally touches you in public. If you bump elbows it feels like an electric shock. Sometimes it is a literal electric shock because she likes long sleeved dresses and you like to wear shiny suits and the static created between you is problematic but mostly it’s just the sexy kind of electric shock. Yeah.

You can’t kill it with other girls anymore because on one hand you know none of them would taste like her and on the other it destroys you when she’s with someone else and there’s a pathetic part of you that makes your stomach twist and your chest ache that doesn’t like to think about how maybe she’d feel the same as you do and you’d hate to hurt her like that. It only takes you a couple of hours to regret trying to kill it with alcohol because you’re a notorious lightweight and there’s a reason you stopped drinking in the first place; control is something you only realise your dependency on when your blurred vision makes it intensely hard to grasp. You hate the way your thoughts lose their structure and your mouth runs all by itself. The art of running your mouth like an idiot whilst simultaneously not embarrassing yourself beyond your will is one of your few skills that you’ve taken for granted over the years and instead of taking your mind off her it just makes you slur that she’s gorgeous to anyone that will listen, even when ‘anyone’ is nobody but her infamous smirk that looks more like a half-smile when you’re too drunk to stand. You hate being drunk but you love the way she drags you back to yours or hers or some shady motel where no one would think to look for you and turns the confines of four walls and a locked door into something that resembles home, whatever that bullshit concept even means. You learn to love (albeit begrudgingly) the way the ceiling spins when your head is resting in her lap and she’s dragging her fingers through your hair even though it’s probably sweaty and gross and experience doesn’t help you stop the lazy grin you develop every time she pushes your heavy shoulders into the mattress and climbs on top of you, tugging on the buttons of your shirt clumsily and peppering your neck with black lipstick.

Rose Lalonde laughs when your mouth is too slow to kiss her back properly and you laugh because she’s smiling. She’s the only human you’ve ever been with that can make you laugh while you’re inside her and there’s a cruel irony in how heavy that weighs on your mind when you haven’t been drinking.

* * *

 

She finishes drafts for another book, you finish the script for another movie. You spend less time together when you’re not writing and the empty space left in your office by the lack of her draped over a desk scrawling idly into a notebook makes you wonder how you ever coped without her. She drops by occasionally if she’s in your part of time but it’s usually because she wants something. She’s a cat and, well, you’ve never been all that great when it came to pets. You vaguely recall a tamagotchi in your childhood but you left it in the pocket of your jeans on laundry day and Dave Jr. was never seen again.

(In all honesty it had been a relief. You never liked the fucker. Always beeping at inappropriate times. Young men have _needs_ and it’s hard to satisfy those needs when you have to stop halfway through and feed a beeping piece of plastic shit some kind of pixelated food that doesn’t even exist like god damn whose stupid idea even was a tamagotchi in the first place because you’d like to give them a piece of your mind on behalf of your past self.)

You cave first and call her up to ask her out to dinner which she makes difficult by letting you speak to her answerphone the first three times and her PA the next two.

(“Who?”

“Dave Strider. You know, the movie guy?”

“Yes, but why are you calling?”

“Can you just pass me to Rose?”

“That’s not how it works, Mr. Strider. Do you have an appointment?”

“I can literally hear her in the background lady, just put her on the phone.”

“I’m sorry, Mr. Strider, but Miss Lalonde is busy right now. Try calling back later.”)

Eventually she takes pity on you and invites you to hers which is better than nothing, even if you have to put up with her stupid cat and creepy house.

The air smells funny when you arrive and you put it down to just having been travelling for too long at first but when she’s waiting for you at the door you know something’s up. Jaspers has been resigned to the lounge, you see him through the glass of the door as she leads you into the kitchen, and her house is even more spotless than usual. Perhaps she’s just had too much time to herself, or perhaps she’s been planning this for a while. Either way, her relaxed smile just makes you uncomfortable and you hesitate before you remove your glasses and fold them neatly, tucking them into your blazer pocket and looking for something to lean on to avoid sitting down next to her at the counter.

“Been cleaning.” You rasp in an attempt to make casual conversation. She simply pats the stool beside her and for the first time you notice the open bottle of wine on the surface, a glass neatly arranged either side. It’s too perfect – overthought. Almost… passive aggressive.

You’ve done something wrong.

Alternatively, you’ve yet to do something and she’s going to do her worst to get you to comply.

Neither of the two possibilities do much to settle the pit in your stomach.

Lilac eyes watch you like a hawk as you cross the floor and attempt to sit at the barstool. It swivels, which you weren’t anticipating, and she chuckles lightly as you nearly fall off, pouring wine into the glasses before you have time to object to a drink. It’s only 2pm.

“It’s only 2pm.” You point out as you steady yourself on the rascally seat.

“Yes.” She agrees and continues pouring.

“Why are we drinking wine at 2pm, Rose?”

“No reason. Don’t you like wine?”

“Well ye- actually no, I hate wine.” You frown. “You _know_ I hate wine because I-“

Wait just one diddly darn minute. “Rose, are you trying to get me drunk?” She smiles sweetly and runs a manicured finger along the rim of the glass that’s intended to be yours.

“Always assuming the worst of me, aren’t you?”

“Are you?”

“Yes, but that’s not the point.”

You sigh and push the glass away as she taps it with her finger again. “Look, just… I don’t know what this is but it’s freaking me out and I have a meeting tomorrow, I gotta drive back. Can you just get to the point?”

This appears to startle her marginally. It’s unsurprising; she’s used to getting her own way with you by now because you are spineless and she has the power of devil woman vagina voodoo at her total disposal. Nevertheless, she narrows her eyes and raises her glass, taking a painfully long time to take a tiny sip before setting it down again. “Very well…” She murmurs, barely a whisper as she fixes you with a glare. “I’ll confess; I asked you here on business. I have a proposition for you.” You shift uncomfortably in your seat which makes it spin to the side a little. What an awful invention, who the fuck would design a chair that you had to keep spinning back to who you were talking to? Clearing your throat and your head of all barstool-based hatred, you try to keep cool.

And fail.

“Is it a sexy proposition or a weird creepy proposition? I mean not that it couldn’t be both but-“ She glowers at you and takes another sip.

“I want to have a baby.”

It’s delivered with the same monotone she uses to read the weather to you from the morning paper. You literally squeak. She takes no notice because apparently she’s not done. “Two babies, actually. Boy flavoured and girl flavoured. Yes, I’m serious. Don’t make that face, Strider, you look like I just asked you to castrate yourself with Jasper’s fur brush.”

You take a deep breath. More like a deep gulp of air as you steady yourself on her shitty chair again and then gradually extend your hand shakily to your untouched wine glass. She smiles and pushes it forwards to you. “I knew you’d come round to the wine sooner or later. That’s a good boy, drink up. You can phone in sick for your meeting tomorrow- Where are you going?”

“Home.” Sliding off the barstool, you brush yourself off and down a mouthful of the wine before slamming the glass back down on the counter. “This is bullshit. Bullshit to the highest degree, Lalonde, and you know it - what the _fuck_? You let me chase your coattails trying to get in a phone call for like two weeks straight and then you invite me here to fuck with my head – what is _wrong_ with you?”

You stand in the doorway fumbling for your glasses. She turns her stool round to the counter, downs her glass, and moves onto yours. “I’ll give you time to think about it.”

You don’t know whether to be enraged or confused but you were never good at being upset so you guess a combination of those two will have to do for now. “Time to think about it? Time to think about _what_? The amount of _shit_ you can throw at me before I finally put my hands up and say okay, okay you did it; congratulations: you won this stupid little game and I give up. For real.”

“I’m not trying to upset you, Dave.” She says quietly. “We should talk about this, genuinely. I’ve been thinking about it for a while. I can’t explain it right now but I promise eventually this will make sense…”

“What will make sense? Is this some kind of test? Because I quit attempting to pass it right now, Lalonde.”

She spins in her chair and hops down. Without heels she’s a lot shorter than you but the fire in her eyes as she stalks up to you is still terrifying enough to make you back away. Glass still in hand, she grabs you by your collar and drags your face down until you’re close enough to smell the venom on her tongue before she even starts to speak. “It’s not a game, Dave. It’s not a test and this isn’t some kind of adult playtime. We’re lodged into something that I don’t think you fully understand and, to put it bluntly, I’m not sure how much time we have left. I’m not fucking with you, Dave. This is a genuine proposal and I was intending that we have a genuine talk about it like adults. Is that clear enough to permeate the barrier of manchild that covers the, albeit small, rational part of your brain, or do I have to repeat myself? I refuse to deal with an infantile tantrum when I am _trying_ to talk about something serious in a way I hoped you could understand.”

“ _Manchild_?” Is all you can choke in response.

“Yes.” She hisses. “Manchild. _Infant_. Little rich boy in a body decades too old for his brain with more income than _sense_ , the recipient of admiration that he doesn’t deserve, I’m talking about _you,_ Dave Strider,-“

“Holy shit…” You mutter. Her eyes dance in their sockets. “C’mere…” She shakes her head and lets go of your collar, her turn to try to back away and hide her face but it’s too late. “Rose? Look at me, crazy broad. Hey.” She rolls her eyes as you catch her by the waist but doesn’t struggle. “What’s got you so scared, hey? You’re the scariest thing I know, what’s rattling your cage?”

“I’m not scared.”

“Whatever.”

“I’m serious. This is serious. It’s a serious discussion about serious things and you ruined it so is it a yes or no?”

You glance at the glass in her hand before snatching it and downing it. She raises an eyebrow as you wipe your mouth with the back of your hand and tuck your glasses away again.  
“Dave, what are you doing?”

Passing the glass back to her, you straighten your collar and take a deep breath. “I’m making us even.” And then, ever so slowly, you take a step back and get down on one knee. “You get to make a proposition, I get to make a proposition right?”

It takes her a second but her eyes widen as she gets it and her reaction is to… recoil in horror. Wow, girl, don’t hold back. “Get up. Get up right now, absolutely not.”

“Rose Lalonde,” You begin as she grits her teeth and intensifies her glare. “Will you marry me?”

“No!”

“Welp, guess that’s that then.” You mumble, standing back up and brushing yourself down for a second time. “No shitty white wedding, no little blonde offspring.” It takes all your willpower to turn on your heel calmly – it’s not that you didn’t know she’d say no but a rejected marriage proposal is still not the nicest way to end a rendezvous. Unless you’re like a total creep and are into rejected marriage proposals, which you’re definitely not, for the record.

“You’re impossible…” She hisses at your back. “You’re a child. You don’t understand anything, do you?”

“Got that last part right at least, colour me thoroughly confused by this entire thing. Set some kind of weird family plan out for me and then treat the idea of marrying me to complete the picture like I just asked you to slow-cook Jaspers in a broth of my own bodily fluids.”

She opens her mouth to speak, frowns, and then just shakes her head at you. “That analogy is just…”

“Weak, I know. Not my best but work with me here, I can safely say I’ve been more relaxed in my life.”

“Good. God, Strider, that’s disgusting. How does your brain even come up with things like that?”

“We’re getting off topic, Lalonde. I believe we were fighting. You were getting pissed at me because I’m immature and can’t understand what you want from me and I was acting all kind of stoic despite the fact that you just damn near tore my heart in two.” You lean back against the doorway, hands in pockets, and give her a shrug. “If I’m right, it’s still your turn to make some kind of personal comment.”

When she screws her face up like that it makes the wrinkles beginning to form in the corners of her eyes look deeper and when she shakes her head with such force that it allows strands of her perfectly lacquered hair to fly loose and float about her face, framing the contours of cheekbones that (and maybe it’s just the lighting but) look darker than they did before. You don’t move when her hands shift up to her face

“It was _never_ my intention to hurt you.” She says, quietly. You notice that she neglects to repeat your exact phrasing. “And you need to understand that if I could explain it to you right now I would, but for the time being-“

“So call me when you trust me enough to let me know what’s going on, and maybe by then I’ll trust you enough to let you take whatever kind of lead you want.”

Her lips are pulled down when she finally moves her hands. You’re too tired to try to remedy them. “It’s the worst kept secret we have that I’d go to the end of the world for you, Lalonde: I’d take a sword to the heart if you asked me to, but I’m your friend, not your puppet.” You should feel empowered but you sort of just feel sick. The conversation has come to a natural close so you turn away and make to leave. “I’ll let myself out.” You call as you reach her front door, hand already on the surface.

* * *

 

Her arms wrap around your chest from behind as you get to your car and you let them just stay there for a while even though she’s making a damp patch on the back of your jacket that you’re not sure you can get out by yourself. For reasons you’re reluctant and too proud to explain you let yourself be dragged back inside, dialling frantically to cancel your meeting as she leads you upstairs with a frightened desperation that makes you feel sick to your stomach.

She drags her fingers over the skin on your shoulders so softly later that evening that you’d think she at least half loved you back. “Please never say what you said today ever again…” She whispers into the dark.

“Gonna have to be more specific,” You murmur into her pillow. “The proposing thing, the Jaspers thing, the heartbreak thing, or the puppet thing?”

Her fingers stop moving and you hear her breath catch beside you. “I wasn’t talking about any of those things, actually…” She sighs. “It doesn’t matter. Goodnight, Dave.”

You stare at her ceiling and wonder if she’s ever going to treat you less like her pet idiot for the next five hours.

When you wake she’s still asleep, writhing and mumbling something you can’t quite understand. Yesterday’s events still weighing heavy on your mind, you doubt you’d understand it even if it was in English.

 

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope this isn't nearly angsty enough because the next one is going to be a lot angstier  
> lets hope and pray i can get it out a lot quicker this time and lets all double hope that the quality will have picked up a notch because this is fairly short and not in great character for a lot of the time so i'm sorry but yeah i'll try harder with next chapter, lot of stuff has been going on lately


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